


Opal, Sapphire, Ruby, and STEVEN!: No Going Back

by iamconstantine



Series: Opal AU [3]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Family, Feels, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, It's not official yet but it's building boys, Not Exactly Pearlmethyst, Opal AU, Original Character(s), Other, Slice of Life, The Ruby/Sapphire is still building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:41:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 69,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27197966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamconstantine/pseuds/iamconstantine
Summary: Everyone is trying to go on with life despite everything that's happened, but it's not easy. Every day gets a little stranger.Faces new and old return to the Crystal Gems. One of Steven's greatest enemies is now one of his best friends, but his family is still trying to stitch back together after everything that's come to light. Home feels different.While the threat of Homeworld comes closer, Steven learns that everyone has their secrets. He wonders if things will ever go back to normal.
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran & Steven Universe, Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe, Jasper & Steven Universe, Opal & Ruby & Sapphire (Steven Universe), Opal & Steven Universe, Ruby & Steven Universe, Ruby/Sapphire (Steven Universe), Sapphire & Steven Universe
Series: Opal AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/384514
Comments: 49
Kudos: 38





	1. The Stuck

**Author's Note:**

> And so, here we are! The third installment in OSRAS, No Going Back. Like I said in the last fic, chapters from here on out will be shorter, but that doesn't necessarily mean a shorter fic, if that makes sense. Some chapters may be standalone, while others might be a "Part One and Two" deal, picking up right where the last one left off. Like I said, I just needed more time to actually write. I wanted to do more than just one chapter a month (at best) but chapters that get up to 20,000 words in length take a lot of time. I'm very happy to be continuing this fic, and excited to share it with you all!

Well. Steven had to admit, he didn't quite see this coming.

Granted, he should probably stop expecting normal days, but still. Not quite what he expected.

A lot happened in just a few minutes.

The first was a sudden gale so powerful Steven slid across the boards of the balcony. Beside him, even Jasper grunted and raised her arms to shield herself. Tiny shards of _something_ were peppering all over his skin, but it was not…cold? It was not snow.

The second was Ruby running down the sand of the beach, quickly followed by Sapphire. They were just as shocked as Steven and Jasper as they watch the incoming torrent came closer and closer—it was Sapphire who snapped out of her surprise first. She ran for the signal and, after hesitating for a split second, sounded the short three trumpets for everyone to stay inside. Was she using her Future Vision, or no?

Opal came bursting through the door between him and Jasper and hesitating for all of two seconds before leaping down to the sand below. Steven finally figured he should join them on the front, and thankfully Jasper seemed to agree, because she once again plucked him up by the back of his shirt before soaring through the air.

It was strange for just a moment, to be standing together again despite everything that had happened. For Beach City's sake, Steven kept his hold on Jasper's leg and stuffed it aside.

When Ruby caught sight of them both, she did a triple-take. "What are you doing here?"

Jasper threw a hand out at the roiling sea. "Does that really matter right now?"

"What is it?" Opal cried above the wind. She'd already summoned her bow into her hands. Steven summoned his shield, surprised but proud that he managed to do so as easily as he did. "It's not a storm!"

Sapphire was trying to concentrate, but the sheer force of the gusts threatened to topple her over. Ruby stepped before her to try and block them.

Finally, Sapphire answered: "It's—"

Now, _this_ time…There was no interruption. Sapphire just trailed off, leaving everyone else to glance sideways at her.

"Sapphy?" Ruby asked.

"I…" The blue Gem coughed awkwardly. "I forgot her—name. It's—"

 _This_ time, she was interrupted.

The water of the ocean surged forward faster than anyone could react. In seconds flat, they were all torn away from one another. Steven could only catch blurs of the others as they were overcome and swept away—even Opal and Jasper only stayed on their feet milliseconds longer before they disappeared beneath the roaring current. They could have been swept miles away and Steven wouldn't know—the frothy waves drowned out any sight.

Steven, though, he stayed put and watched the waves slush by him as a current would stream past a stone. There was no barrier around him, yet he was unharmed.

The surge went higher, over his head, and the sun became a bright blob above him— _still_ not a single drop came upon him, until water trickle over his feet and instantly froze. Or rather, solidified; it still didn't feel cold in the slightest. It was more glass than anything else. Either way, Steven couldn't budge no matter how much he pulled and fought.

Even worse, it took him far too long to realize he'd been moved after all. Through the wavering walls of his "bubble," the shore was pulling further and further away, and the neverending ocean was coming closer and closer. The panic was building in his chest as a physical pressure, but it was nothing compared to the confusion.

What could this be? A powerful Gem monster? A chunk of the Cluster left behind? Or maybe Blue Diamond had set an attack in motion as soon as her call with Jasper ended…

Steven only stopped when he was _far_ higher above the waves than he could ever be comfortable with. Whatever this was, Steven braced himself to fight and struggle, to try and break free before he was drowned or attacked.

Past the swirling walls of seafoam, Steven finally saw her: Chrysocolla.

She looked ragged and exhausted. Her teal skin was dripping just as it had been the last time he saw her—as if she was melting. Her second pair of arms had become currents, hardly resembling arms at all. They surged from the back of her neck in choppy jets.

Steven couldn't see her eyes behind her visor, but she knew the look she was leveling the shore with was nothing short of _furious._ Her arms were outstretched at her sides, just pushing the surge further.

She was here for them. And it seemed to Steven that she was going to use the entire ocean, every last drop, to enact her revenge.

He still couldn't see the others. He couldn't even see his _Room_ through his aqua prison. Had it already been ripped to shreds? Had Beach City been wiped out by unrelenting waves? Could he just not see everyone thrashing in the water below?

Steven raised his shield and bashed it against the side of his cage, but it did no use. It hardly did more than spray mist back into his face.

"Chrysocolla!" he cried out, bashing again. He wasn't going to sit around helplessly anymore. "Stop this! Please!"

Instead, Chrysocolla raised her arms higher, and the ocean behind her swelled. A wall of water built from the depths, higher and higher until it blocked out the sun. A tsunami to end all tsunamis, but held in place until Chrysocolla was ready. There was no way anything on the beach was going to hold up against it.

Thinking quickly, Steven forced a Bubble out from his Gem. He might as well have pushed a boulder—he instantly felt the pins-and-needles fatigue after. He guessed a shield followed by a Bubble was just too much for his body. But it worked. The glossy pink walls burst through the water. He was free.

And freefalling. Not as high as he'd feared, but Steven still hardly had time to catch his breath before he hit the water. Everything went dark for a moment, his ears filled with nothing but white noise, and he just _kicked, kicked, kicked_ his way back to the surface.

Chrysocolla wasn't a huge Gem, not too much taller than Opal, but she towered over him now. The still-building walls of seawater behind her only made her look larger, not smaller. Steven still remembered that horrid time of jumping into Lapis's whirlpool, tossed and turned in every direction, blind and deaf, his chest constricting to hold in air. He imagined it again, but if it happened this time, he doubted he'd be breathing again.

"Chrysocolla!" The chopping waves threatened to overpower him—already Steven's legs were exhausting. "You don't have to do this!"

The fusion's hands trembled, and Steven waited. Waited for them to swing down, to bring the tsunami crashing upon them all.

Instead, the hands stilled, and Chrysocolla's voice caught in the breeze.

"Okay. Take it easy…"

Her arms lowered down slowly, and slowly did the wall collapse. Even then, the ripples sent Steven tossing up and down.

As he did so, he noticed that the not-snow was no longer falling through the air. And that, though still restless, the waves were not nearly as violent as before.

Chrysocolla tilted her head back as she took a deep, shuddering breath. Finally Steven could see her eyes, but they were closed as she steadied herself.

Then the fusion spoke:

"Okay. I apologize for that. I lost my cool for a second there."

Steven was left blinking. Because—

Just—

Wait, what?

Chrysocolla's eyes opened. Calm and attentive. She blinked when her eyes did not immediately fall on him—she had to scan the waves before she found him within. The fusion that had just threatened to level Beach City with a colossal tidal wave looked _sheepish._

The arms from her neck settled. One stretched forth and scooped Steven gently into its palm. It wasn't a dry experience, but it was better. As he was carried back to the shore, Steven saw with relief that the surge had only made it up the stairs and not to the Room itself. Some boards had been ripped from their place, and all over the beach there were debris of seaweed, shells, and long-taken garbage littering the sand.

Steven was set down between a bundle of seaweed and a flopping fish—which he quickly picked up and gently tossed back into his home.

He was still reeling, and Steven couldn't quite comprehend how Chrysocolla looked when he raised his eyes back up to her. She was suspended above the waves by her arms, one hand holding the other's wrist, still hesitant.

Wasn't this the fusion who literally chased him through his nightmares?

The fusion clicked her tongue and clipped out, "Hey-llo, Steven."

Steven couldn't help but blink owlishly a few times. "Hey-llo yourself."

Behind her visor, Chrysocolla's eyes swept over the damage she wrought. "I'm—sorry about…Here, let me get that."

One of her arms stretched over him and plucked up a jellyfish he hadn't even noticed before. Steven was grateful to see it taken back home…though he did have to duck to keep its stingers from brushing against his face.

With one out of ten thousands debris taken care of, Chrysocolla coughed, "I'll get the rest later."

With no one around to advise him, Steven had to ask: what was the appropriate response here?

He settled with: "How have you been?"

"Uh…Wet." Chrysocolla's eyes turned away, lips puckering uncomfortably. "I mean, I've been in the bottom of the ocean, so."

"Right. Um…It's good to see you!"

Chrysocolla's lips puckered more. Peridot's half was as clear as day. "You're just saying that."

"What? No, no, I'm not! I'm…happy you're here…! I've been worried about you!"

The hand holding her other wrist tightened. Already her skin was starting to drip again. "You've been worried about _one_ of us…"

That wasn't entirely… _wrong._ That is, one of her components was a dear friend of Steven's and another was a Homeworld follower who'd tried to get them all killed, but he was still worried about Peridot nonetheless. He couldn't imagine the things they had been through in their torment called "fusion," let alone wish it on anyone.

Speaking of, another wave of confusion washed over him. True, Chrysocolla had terrified him, but she was still Lapis and Peridot—the last Steven had seen them, there were in a nightmarish void, struggling every few moments to regain their control. That was what their fusion had been before, and now it was here, calm and sheepish and not _entirely_ unhinged. (Entrance aside.)

"Well. I was—"

"I'm not here for small talk." One of her arms came forward to shush him, but with all the grace of a decapitated chicken, so Steven got a face full of sea foam. "I'm here to…"

A few more drops of flesh dripped down her face. She hated that she was even here, it seemed, but she had to be, for some reason.

"I'm here to ask for some help."

Steven blinked. Blinked again. Saw a crab struggling on its back and flipped it over. Blinked again.

And still he said, "Okay. Help with what?" He paused. "I should've waited until I said 'okay.'"

"Help with—"

" _Steven, get down!"_

He didn't get to. A burning stream of purple lasered mere feet from his shoulder—Steven was left with a warmth radiating down his arm after.

The arrow clipped one of Chrysocolla's watery arms right from her neck, but it didn't seem to do any damage to her physical form—though it did accomplish her shrieking in alarm.

With a heavy _thunk,_ Jasper landed in front of him, one of her massive arms outstretched to shield him. Her crash helmet glinted despite the dim sun. She was more than ready to get her hands dirty at any given moment.

She was quickly followed by Opal, Sapphire, and Ruby, all running for them at breakneck speed. Opal was already summoning another arrow, Sapphire's knuckledusters were as sharp as ever, and Ruby's gauntlets were ready to pummel. As they came closer, Ruby and Sapphire took each others' hands.

As soon as they began to glow, Steven shot out from behind Jasper to stand between them and Chrysocolla, whose arms were once again raised to bring the ocean down upon them.

" _Stop!"_

Well, they did, but Ruby and Sapphire were already halfway through forming Garnet, so the result was…messy. The glowing silhouette just barely managed to stop in front of Steven before it fell apart—once the two of them broke away from each other, Ruby went flying into the water like a rider kicked off a horse.

Opal stared at Chrysocolla with why-would-I-stop-this-is-a-problem eyes, Jasper watched Steven with wait-did-I-miss-something-isn't-this-a-threat eyes, and Sapphire blinked at the water with a how-did-I-manage-to-fling-Ruby-like-that eye.

"Don't fight!" Steven barked out. How could Opal not see that the two of them were just talking? Was she always this trigger-happy? (Bowstring-happy?) "She's not here to fight!"

"… _UM._ I know my memory isn't great, but…" Opal's three free hands went flying in every direction. "The water?! The surge?! The wall of watery doom?!"

"Yeah, I'm actually with her on this one," Jasper admitted, though she did dismiss her helmet back into her Gem. "That kind of screams 'here for a fight.'"

That was fair. Steven wondered if maybe he was getting too moody lately, too cynical…but that didn't matter at the moment. Chrysocolla was dripping more than ever, her limbs shaking, the water around her spiking up and down. She looked like she was one more loud outburst from snapping.

(Out in the water, Ruby's head reemerged. "I'm good!")

"She needs our…help," Steven told them, though he was confused as the rest of them responded.

Sapphire looked down at her feet. One of the boards from the stairs had been swept all the way over to her, split in half. "This is one way of asking for it…"

"Both of you have tried to destroy us all," Opal reminded them. "Forgive me if I'm confused."

"Well, let's just listen to what she has to say," Steven exclaimed. Not exactly annoyed with them all, but wanting so hard to avoid another fight. He was so exhausted. "What's the harm in that?"

(Ruby trudged back to Sapphire to ask if they were going to pummel this guy or what, but Sapphire only shushed her.)

Steven turned back to Chrysocolla to hear her, but she had not calmed down at all. It'd gotten worse—her panic was now swelling with anger, too. Some of the waves at her feet would freeze in razor peaks for just a moment before settling back down. More so than that, her eyes were blazing.

" _No,"_ she barked out, loud enough for all of them to jump. "Just Steven! I don't want any of you!"

Her eyes went over to Jasper, and narrowed into slits, though she seemed more distressed than furious—or that she was battling to be one or the other, which made sense. Steven took a step closer to defend her, but wasn't sure if he could do anything to stop her from being crushed by a hailstorm.

"What is she even doing here?" Chryscolla's voice strained. Steven could only guess that her components were struggling to get on the same page. "Why are you defending her?"

Jasper's eyes narrowed back, somehow seeming bigger than the fusion, her hands in fists at her sides—fearless against whatever threat Chrysocolla was posing. She opened her mouth to bark back, to make a snarky insult, to—

"Who are you?"

Chrysocolla blinked. As did everyone else.

Ruby said, slowly, "It's…Chrysocolla?"

Jasper raised her shoulders— _How does that answer my question?_

Sapphire added, "The fusion of Lapis and Peridot."

And Opal: "The one that's been in the ocean all this time?"

Even then, it took a second for Jasper to finally say, "Oh. Right." Catching Steven's very baffled eye, she raised up her palms in defense. "Look, I never met her, and you have a lot of weird friends."

" _Why._ Is _she._ With _you,"_ Chrysocolla snapped again. Water snapped at her ankles.

"Jasper is…" Steven ran through the conversation they'd had just hours before at the Beta Kindergarten. He had to choose his words carefully. "Not… _with us,_ but she's not against us anymore, either."

When the fusion's eyes bugged almost against her visor, Jasper scoffed. "These guys are janked up, Homeworld is also janked up, I'm just going to do me for a while."

"Wh—How— _urgh…!"_

Chrysocolla buried her face into her hands and thrashed in the air. The razor spikes of the water stayed, too sharp to even look at for too long, and everyone tensed once again. Steven just held his breath. He couldn't just let her wreak havoc on his home, but he held onto the hope that they could just talk—it was the only time so far _he_ wasn't the one to make the first step to do so.

The fusion was melting so badly now the drips were pouring between her fingers. Her voice muffled against her palm, but as she spoke, Steven swore he heard Lapis speaking with her. "How could you be friends with a Homeworld loyalist?" But then Lapis faded, and now it was Peridot: "How could a Homeworld loyalist be friends with _you?!"_

"Hey, easy, easy." _Finally,_ Opal dismissed her bow and held out her hands. Ruby and Sapphire did the same, though not without unease. "Just calm down. I don't know what you want help with, but we can—"

" _No!"_

Water swirled around Steven's body and _swung_ him up into the air. All he could do was let out a strangled yell. The saltwater held him tight around the middle, pinning his arms to his sides, while his legs uselessly dangled a good ten feet above the surface. He was beside Chrysocolla now, the Crystal Gems and Jasper still on the shore, and already the Weapons had reappeared.

Steven tried to summon another Bubble, but it was no use. His body couldn't take anymore.

"Just Steven," Chrysocolla barked again. "I don't want anything to do with the rest of you!"

Steven was pulled into Chrysocolla's real hands, and the others rose up. Steven realized that she was about to fly off with him—once again pulled from his home, stolen away, with no one to help him but himself.

Steven wasn't in the mood.

"Put me down!"

The winged hands stilled, but Chrysocolla's gaze narrowed at him. She held him out with both hands at arm's length. The way a child held a teddy bear, embarrassing as it was to say. The others were watching closely.

"You're the only one who can help me," hissed Chrysocolla.

"Well, I'm going to help you here!" Steven tried to stomp his foot, but—yeah. "No kidnapping! Put Steven down now!"

At first nothing happened…and then Chrysocolla's wings went up again, slowly, challenging.

"Chrysocollaaaaa," he warned. He sounded like he was scolding a child.

And Chrysocolla responded like one, voice losing all of its edge as she mumbled, "But…"

"No buts! Back on the sand."

With all the moodiness of a reprimanded teenager, Chrysocolla growled, pouted, and gently put him back down on the sand with the others. They all stepped closer to him, just in case, but all Chrysocolla did was cross her arms with a huff.

"Okay," Ruby sighed. "Do you want to explain what the problem is now?"

In response, Chrysocolla turned her back to them, arms still crossed. It was only then that Steven saw she had another pair of eyes—a little below the nape of her neck, now glaring at them all.

Jasper scoffed again, and even Opal let out an audible breath. None of them said anything, but Steven couldn't blame them. He was the only person who Chrysocolla was 50% okay with.

"Just talk to me." Steven stepped forward until the tide lapped at his toes. Chrysocolla peeked at him over her shoulder. "Just…ignore everyone else, I promise they won't do anything. Pinky promise!"

But when he stuck his pinky out as an offering, Chrysocolla's nose wrinkled. "You don't have to give me your pinky, I get it."

"That's not—" Steven held up a hand to stop Jasper—and didn't point out that she _also_ didn't know what a pinky promise was before he told her. He just needed everyone to stay calm.

Steven patted his chest. "It's just Steven now. Talk to the Steven."

Still unhappy though she was, Chrysocolla turned back around with her eyes only on him. Steven smiled. He reminded himself that Chrysocolla was also Chrysocolla—he was going to have to appeal to both Lapis _and_ Peridot, who couldn't be more different.

"What's wrong?"

Chrysocolla extended her hands and hesitated. She almost seemed embarrassed, unable to forget they had an audience.

"I want—" She tried to find a hand gesture to explain, but everything she did just looked like broken sign language. "I want…to—I want to _stop._ "

"'Stop'?" Steven's brows furrowed together. "Stop what?"

"I want to stop— _this."_

She ran her hands down at herself, with a few drops of her skin still sliding down and the waves beneath her still bubbling. Steven wondered if she ever knew peace for all of five seconds.

"Ohhh, you want to—calm down? Okay! We can do that!" Steven turned to Sapphire and clapped his hands together. "You go get the cucumber slices, I'll go get the mud masks."

"No," groaned Chrysocolla, burying her face again.

"Yoga?"

" _No!_ I want—to— _this."_

Chrysocolla hooked her fingers together and pulled them apart—as though she was snapping something apart.

Understanding finally dawned on Steven, quickly follow by more confusion. Judging by the others' faces, they were in the same boat. "You want to unfuse?"

She stuck out her palms at him, satisfied.

"Then just…do it," said Ruby. She remembered she wasn't supposed to be there when the fusion turned her eyes on her, annoyed. "I mean…Isn't not doing something the easiest thing to do?"

"If I could, why would I be asking for help?!"

"Hold on." Jasper turned to the others. Her brows were knit together tightly, and she looked just ever-so-slightly horrified. "You can get _stuck_ in a fusion?"

"Hold on, hold on." Steven sloshed forward a few more steps. Chrysocolla stayed put, fuming. "Do _you_ want to unfuse, or do Lapis and Peridot want to?"

"I _am_ Lapis and Peridot."

"That's…Correct. I have no idea how to explain this."

Sapphire raised her hand to whisper to Opal, "Maybe Peridot took over?"

" _We_ want to split up. They want to. I want to! Whatever! Just _help!"_

"Okay, okay, okay!" Steven started stepping backwards—the spikes in the water making him wary. "Why don't you come down here, 'kay? Then we'll talk."

Chrysocolla complied, but only after everyone stepped back. She didn't seem to like dry land much; her legs were stiff as stone on the sand. Though to be fair, she may have been wary of stepping on a seaweed cluster.

"Good. No weapons, no tsunamis, we're all calm here. So…Why _can't_ you unfuse?"

"I don't _know,_ " growled Chrysocolla. She was crossing her arms hard enough to squeeze her chest. "I just _can't._ "

"Well…I know you only want my help, but why don't we ask Opal? She's an expert on fusion!"

Chrysocolla didn't protest, only turning her glower on the other fusion. Steven could have sighed in relief. For all the secrets they kept, the Crystal Gems had a vast knowledge in all things…well, Gem-related. This was the part where Opal readily explained what was happening and what they had to do.

But as all eyes went to her, Opal's hand stiffened on her chest. Her blue eyes went off to the side, embarrassed.

"Um."

Well, it was Steven's fault for getting his hopes up. "You _don't_ know?"

"I've never heard of anyone getting stuck in a fusion," confessed Opal. She looked curiously up at Chrysocolla, who glowered harder back. "Peridot's a first-timer, neither of them want to keep it up anymore…They should've broken up the second they called it off."

"Maybe this is just a 'her' thing."

"I don't know enough about Christopher—"

"Chrysocolla."

"—Chrysocolla to guess, Steven." Despite her words, Opal wasn't yelling or insisting—just explaining the way it was. Her gaze never changed from consideration. If Steven didn't know any better, he'd say that she was either compassionate for Chrysocolla's state or really, _really_ interested in where it came from. "I guess I could _try—"_

"I already told you! Just Steven!"

Steven took a breath, made his compassion take over his frustration. "I don't know _how_ to help. But I want to!"

"Why?" spat Chrysocolla. "So you can get your best friend back? So you can all be a big happy team again and lock Peridot away so she can't do anything? Or maybe Lapis, too?"

Well, this was a lot to unpack…Steven couldn't just let her go away again, knowing what she had to go through every day, but this was a hard path to navigate. The only sliver of hope was that Lapis was his friend—Peridot hated him, and it seemed they both hated the Crystal Gems. He'd been hoping that Lapis might have let her anger go, but, well, he'd never been trapped in a mirror for thousands of years, so.

"The others are going to help me, and I'm going to help you." Steven took a chance and stepped closer until he was within arm's length of her. Chrysocolla stiffened but did not pull away. He smiled. "We're going to get you out of this."

Chrysocolla's mouth flattened into a hard line. "And what about after that?"

"Listen." _No, no, no,_ Steven wanted to beg Jasper, but she went on talking before he could stop her. "I doubt Lazuli would be going back to Homeworld anyway, and unless Peridot has an entire ship tucked away in her Gem, she's not going anywhere, either. Right?"

Jasper raised a brow to the others. The Crystal Gems looked between one another, a few nods and shrugs shared between them. Sapphire answered, "The Cluster's gone, and the Warps are destroyed, so I can't see how Peridot can cause any more trouble."

For a second, the fusion's glower fell to bafflement. "What did you do to the Clu—?!" Then she shook her head vehemently. It made her visor bob on her face. "Okay, whatever. Are you going to help me, or not?!"

" _Yes,_ " Steven stressed. "But you have to _let_ me."

Chrysocolla looked at them all in turn. Jasper and Ruby returned her glower, Opal merely raised a brow, and Sapphire was as calm as ever. Steven kept smiling even though his cheeks were starting to hurt.

"I don't want anyone coming closer than three feet of me," Chrysocolla snapped. She glared off to the side and mumbled, "But fine. Okay."

"Fantastic!" Steven clapped again and turned on his heel. "I'm going to go get cookies!"

" _Don't leave me with them."_

"Ruby is going to go get cookies!"

Ruby went, though she did mumble something or another about how she used to be a soldier in a war to save the planet.

* * *

With the beach in the state it was in, they decided to take their meeting up to the clifftop. Steven had to admit: watching Chrysocolla walking alongside them, squirming as the grass brushed between her toes…was the least strange thing that was happening. It still felt odd to be walking alongside Ruby and Sapphire and Opal.

He was at least happy that they were _all_ ignoring the tension. He still remembered with bitterness how Ruby and Sapphire had tried to coax and comfort him on the island, ignoring the literal incoming of the apocalypse to try and get on his good side again. Not only were they all focused now, Steven never once felt a pair of eyes linger on him.

Steven didn't want to overthink it—his mind and body were both about to give in to exhaustion—but he wondered what life was going to be like from here on out. With Blue Diamond's talk with Jasper, it seemed Homeworld _might_ leave them be for just a while. They may have a few more hundred years until they have to worry about them again. Jasper said she was going to stay and figure things out for herself, but that was going to be the easiest thing to accept at this point. Having Jasper around would be a change as harmless as a new color of paint on the walls.

What would Lapis do? She wouldn't go back to Homeworld, but what had happened to change her mind on staying on Earth? The galaxy was neverending, she could surely find somewhere else to go, though Steven knew he would miss her.

And yes, things were probably going to work their way back to normal soon. Steven took a look over at Opal and Sapphire, remembered that they had no idea about his and Jasper's trip, Blue Diamond's call, that he knew who Pink Diamond was and what had happened to her. He was going to tell them, of course—they were still on the same team.

It was strange that just a few hours before, he was telling himself that it was okay to take his time, and he and the others were going to have "That Talk" when he was ready to do so. But already the idea wasn't as daunting to him. No, he didn't want to discuss it _now,_ but the inevitability was a smaller pill to swallow. Did he need a stronger backbone? Should he try and get that stewing bitterness back?

While they all stood on the gently drifting grass, Jasper leaned down to him to whisper. Steven was pleased that neither Sapphire nor Opal so much as side-eyed them—apparently no longer bothered by Jasper interacting with him. Perhaps their fusions to take down the Cluster had solidified that they didn't need to worry about Jasper anymore, and that she wasn't trying to pull Steven to the dark side.

"Remind me _why_ we're doing this again," Jasper said.

"Well…She was going to destroy the town." Steven thought of what Beach City might look like if Chrysocolla hadn't reigned in her temper. Buildings swept away, destroyed, the town reduced to nothing but debris.

"Looks like her temper tantrum's over to me."

Steven kicked at a stone by his foot. "Lapis is my friend. I have to make sure she's okay. And Peridot—"

"Hates your guts and tried to kill all of you."

Steven waited for her to correct herself, but she didn't. "So…did you?"

"…Okay, _point taken."_ Jasper glanced off to the side, embarrassed for a fleeting second. "But what happens when those two split up again? You think Peridot's going to be grateful? I'm pretty sure all this time in underwater prison would just make her angrier."

"We're just going to have to cross that bridge when we get to it. Like Sapphire said, Peridot can't really do anything to us or the Earth anyway. Besides…" Steven mumbled from the corner of his mouth, cool as cool could be, "Don't tell anyone I said so, but I'm pretty sure I could take Peridot."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night."

Steven chewed on the inside of his lip. The others were far enough out of earshot. "Are you okay?"

"Hm? Oh." Jasper readjusted her cape as it flicked around in the breeze. She paused for just a moment, looking down at her blue uniform, her lip curling just so. She looked away just as soon, though, and cleared her throat. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Don't worry."

Their conversation cut short when Ruby finally emerged, trudging up the grassy slope. Jasper stood up straight again and called, "Took long enough!"

"I don't think any living person has ever had a short conversation with Mayor Dewey," sighed Ruby. Down below, Steven just barely caught the papier-mâché head driving back into town. "I told him it was just a freak surge and there was nothing to worry about. Onion's going to clean up the beach. Community service hours and all that."

Ruby stopped beside him and Jasper, and Sapphire came over to join them. Towards the end of the cliff, pressed against the stretching sky, Opal and Chrysocolla stood apart from each other, straight and stiff. Chrysocolla's watery wings still bubbled anxiously.

"What are they doing?" whispered Ruby.

Sapphire whispered back, "Opal is trying to get her to calm down."

Opal stretched her four arms high in the air, slow and fluid, and Chrysocolla mirrored her movements. Even so far away, Steven could see some of the tension melting away from her limbs.

"Breathe in," said Opal.

"Breathe in," repeated Chrysocolla.

The two fusions lowered their arms in tandem, their breaths gusting out slowly. Chrysocolla's toes curled, embracing the grass instead of squirming at it.

"Breathe out."

"Breathe out."

They'd been doing this for some minutes now in Ruby's absence. Opal stretched her limbs and arched her back and Chrysocolla mimicked her, her reluctance fading with each movement. The fusion had a grace to her stifled away under the…everything-else.

At last, Opal lowered herself to the ground and crossed her legs together. Chrysocolla did the same.

"Now," said Opal, "Close your eyes."

From Steven's perspective, nothing changed.

Opal added, "Both sets."

 _Then_ the ones on Chrysocolla's face closed. Oh.

"Take deep breaths in and out." Chrysocolla obeyed, breathing so deep Steven could hear each inhale even so far away. "Focus on the wind and the ground beneath you. Forget anything else. Just let go…"

For a minute they all watched as Chrysocolla went stiller and stiller until at last she was a living statue. She leaned forward just a bit, almost as if she was powering down, only needing to charge her batteries again.

Even as Opal stood to her toes once again, slow and careful, Chrysocolla did not twitch a muscle. Opal left her at the edge, a pleased smile on her face.

"Alright," she said quietly as she approached.

Jasper frowned. "Now what?"

"Now we wait."

Opal sat down cross-legged once more, soon followed by Sapphire and Ruby, the latter of which lazily propped up against her. Jasper only did the same when Steven laid down on the grass, and with a sigh. Again, there was another moment where Steven was _almost_ caught in the bizarreness of it all. All of them, sitting in the grass, no defenses. Letting it go was getting easier and easier.

They were all together, all watching Chrysocolla, and Opal mused, "They should melt apart in no time."

* * *

Five hours passed.

"How about now?" mumbled Ruby. She was sprawled on her back with her arm across her face. Sapphire was using her belly as a pillow and may or may not have fallen asleep; it was hard to tell.

"No," Opal grumbled in response. She still had her hand propping up her chin, though its hold was precarious. She looked one long blink from nodding off herself.

Even Jasper was beginning to get some bags under her eyes. She groaned (with a muffled voice because she too had went to the grass on her side), "Can we please move on to something else now?"

It was this grumble that awoke Steven, who had fallen asleep at some point, using the back of Jasper's legs as a cushion. He came to with a snort and a slurred, "Pancakes…?"

"Alright, I'm calling it in." Opal stood up once more, brushing her clothes from grass. As she walked for the still-frozen and still-present fusion at the end of the cliff, Ruby sat up and rubbed at her eyes. Sapphire groaned unhappily. "C'mon, Chris. Wakey-wakey."

Chrysocolla's eyes fluttered open as gently as someone waking from deep slumber—a gentleness that flew out the window when her eyes fell on Opal again. She shot a good ten feet in the air before coming back down again, water-wings bubbling and skin going slick for just a moment as if in a heat flash.

She looked down at her arms and feet, took two handfuls of hair and pulled, and snapped, "I'm still here!"

"So I see," hummed Opal. She'd gone back to her analyzing mode—not paying mind to the acidic glare Chrysocolla was trying to pin her with. The others joined them while Opal tapped on her chin. "What to do, what to do."

"I have an idea," Jasper gruffly offered.

"No you don't," replied Chrysocolla.

"I have an idea," chirped Steven.

"It's about time," replied Chrysocolla.

"Okay, maybe instead of going deep into their mind-zone, we should just work with what we got?" His response was a unanimous stare. "Man, I'm really bad with my words today. Why don't we give them a push in the right direction? Or—a pull, I guess?"

Jasper turned to Sapphire and Ruby. "You guys getting any of this?"

"I am," Opal answered quickly. She cast a long look behind them at the grassy slope of the cliff. "Let's go back down to the beach. We're going to need some space.

* * *

Jasper held up her palms in defense, but somehow in a way that said she still didn't need to defend herself. It was a paradoxical gesture. "Look, I'm just saying I think it would be equal."

"Four to one is not equal," snorted Ruby. She was drumming her foot on the sand, probably trying to look impatient, but Steven knew a hurt Ruby-ego when he saw one. "I may not be the best at math, but I know that ain't right!"

Jasper rolled her eyes up to the clouds. It was starting to darken in the afternoon, but her eyes were still stark yellow and shining. "You can't split five people equally." She flicked her gaze to Opal. "I mean, we could, but we're not going to."

"Indeed, we're not." Opal looked between all of them again. She must have gone through a hundred combinations at this point. "Maybe we should put Sapphire and Steven with me. That might balance it out."

"The Ruby can go on your side, too. That's what I've been trying to say."

"Okay. So just to be clear." Ruby pressed her hands together and closed her eyes. "You weren't arguing against us, and you really don't care, you just wasted the last five minutes to say that you're just as strong as five other Gems combined."

"You said it, not me."

Ruby walked away halfway through, hands above her head. "I'm about to have a conniption."

"Guys, does it really matter?" Steven sighed. They'd been standing around for a good fifteen minutes just figuring out who was going to go where—or rather, coming to the conclusion that it didn't make much of a difference. "Chrysocolla looks pretty impatient."

From behind him, she called out: "I _feel_ pretty impatient, too!"

"Plus, I haven't eaten like… _anything_ today, and knowing I missed Dad's Breakfast Surprise is giving me shame-hunger on top of the normal-hunger. I'm running on backup energy right now."

Opal held up her hands to stop any further comments—knowing how serious a matter Steven's hunger could be—and told them all, "Just go wherever you want."

Chrysocolla just silently pouted on the sand while they split up. The chains wrapped around her chest and feet were courtesy of Opal, who had collections of literally everything that had ever existed. Just looking at how tightly they were weaved and knotted, Steven could only guess at how uncomfortable it must have been, but it looked like Chrysocolla was more annoyed than anything else.

As they came closer to her—not noticing how the fusion curled up at their proximity—Jasper leaned towards Opal to whisper, "Hey, have you thought about…"

Then she caught the fusion's eyes on her, and tried to pretend she was talking about something else, even though her voice dropped as low as she could manage. Steven didn't catch a word of it.

When she finished, Opal clicked her tongue grimly. "Let's focus on Plan B for right now."

Opal picked up the loose length at Chrysocolla's feet. The links clicked and rang together as she passed it to Ruby and Sapphire. Jasper took up the head end, and seemed reluctant, but eventually gave the chain to Steven to help.

Steven honestly didn't realize that he'd once again chosen Jasper over the others. He'd done it without any conscience at all. Did that say anything? Was he getting too deep again?

Looking at Chrysocolla as she squirmed on the sand, he worried about Lapis and Peridot. For a moment he regretted ever getting the mirror to begin with. He shook that thought away quickly—Lapis would still be trapped if he hadn't gotten that mirror out.

 _She's trapped now,_ something reminded him. _Now she just has company._

Steven wrapped the chains around his knuckles for a firmer grip. He was going to get Chrysocolla apart. Even if it took the weirdest game of tug-of-war to ever happen to do it.

"Ready?" Opal called from the other side.

"Ready," Jasper and Steven answered.

" _PULL!"_

Steven pulled with every morsel of strength his muscles had…and realized that behind Jasper, he was doing nothing but tugging on the slack, so he moved to be in front of her instead.

The chains pulled taut, almost ringing with tension. Chrysocolla grunted and squeezed her eyes shut but did not protest, even as the links dug into her skin and wrenched. Steven still probably wasn't doing a quarter as much as Jasper, but he kept pulling regardless. Already he could feel calluses rubbing into his palms.

The air filled with grunts and hisses. Sweat rolled down brows. Teeth gritted together. Muscles bulged so far from under the skin they seemed like to burst through.

Pain was starting to swell in the bones of Steven's arms. The sheer promise of the pins-and-needles to come was painful, but he didn't stop for a second. For each second that passed of the pain growing sharper and sharper, he just told himself that in a few seconds, Lapis would be there. Chrysocolla would never be a problem again. Just one more second, just one more second.

He didn't know when he'd squeezed his eyes shut, but when he _finally_ felt a give, he didn't dare open them for a second lest he lose focus. They all kept pulling, the tiny millimeters of change feeling like miles.

Then, finally:

_POP!_

Steven went flying through the air in a flurry of chain links and sand. He hit Jasper back-to-chest, and the two went to the ground like ragdolls. It was better for him to be in front, after all—Jasper probably would have crushed him dead.

The others had to deal with just that, though. Opal went falling on Ruby and Sapphire. They didn't even get the luck of going down domino-style. Opal pinned Sapphire underneath her legs and Ruby underneath her back. Ruby got the worst of it. She was not lost in the never-ending abyss that was Opal's ponytail.

There were groans of dizziness and yes, the foretold pins-and-needles that set their hands and arms ablaze. But they only basked in the consequences for a moment. Opal picked her head up from the sand, spat out a sand dollar, and asked, "Did it work?"

The answer was, of course, no.

Chrysocolla just sat between the two teams with her arms and legs curled into herself, almost embarrassed. They all blinked at her, trying to figure out just what had happened—she hadn't glowed to shapeshift out of the chains. A silent exchange between Jasper and Opal confirmed that no, the chains weren't broken.

Then everyone's eyes fell on Chrysocolla's skin. It was still melting like a popsicle under a hot sun.

In a flash, Chrysocolla's watery arms covered herself. _"Don't judge me."_

Thus followed a collective sigh. Steven kicked himself for trying to find the easy way out again. But still, why couldn't things ever be easy? When was the last time something _was_ easy?

Ruby was finally freed from hairy torment when Opal stood up again. She gulped for air that she didn't need. Thoroughly traumatized. "Did it work?"

"No," Sapphire answered. She thumped the red Gem on the back while she coughed and trembled. "But it was worth a short."

" _UGH!"_ Chrysocolla's arms of water slammed down on the sand. Everyone went bouncing. "You guys haven't helped at all!"

"We haven't _succeeded,_ but we _are_ helping." Ruby stood up to her feet, brushed off her clothes. The terror had worn off. "You're welcome, by the way."

"Oh, don't get all hoity-toidy with me, Miss Let's-Bubble-The-Trapped-Gem-In-The-Mirror!" Chrysocolla stewed for all of two seconds before adding, "Miss Let's-Mess-Up-All-of-Peridot's-Hard-Work!"

Jasper snorted a genuine laugh. "Ooh! Do me."

"Miss Throw-Lapis-In-a-Cell-And-Make-Her-Tell-You-Where-The-Crystal-Gems-Are!"

"Nice."

Taking a chance, Steven came closer to Chrysocolla, until he was an arm's reach away from her face. She only pouted up at him. He still felt bad for her, though he knew that they would have made even less progress if she'd managed to snag him away like she wanted—like, negative progress. He was almost tempted to lay a hand on her forehead for comfort, but decided against it. Surely Peridot would come surging up to the surface to bat him away.

"You're not keeping anything from us, right?" he asked. "Nothing we should know that could help?"

Chrysocolla's nose scrunched up for the thousandth time. "Why would I keep anything from you if I thought it could help?"

She said that, but Steven caught some kind of hesitance. But it wasn't defiant—as though Chrysocolla herself didn't know if she had something worth sharing or not.

In any case, the group had come together again to discuss the next strategy. Chrysocolla flopped over to turn away from Steven—her other pair of eyes scowling away from him—so he let her be as much as it pained him. She didn't have a friend in the world right now.

As he was coming closer, he heard Ruby saying, "…like the hiccups? We just have to—scare 'em out?"

If Jasper's nose could have curled up, Steven was sure it would have. "What are 'hiccups'?"

"Just forget it."

"Does anyone have any other ideas?" Steven asked. He was out, himself. "I might, but it's hard to think on an empty—Oh, thanks."

While Steven tore open the granola bar Ruby had tossed his way, Sapphire mused aloud, "Maybe they're scared for what will come after." She looked Chrysocolla's way, sighing as she saw the fusion curled up on her side. "Even if Peridot _says_ she won't try to contact Homeworld, you can still keep secrets in a fusion. I just don't know if Lapis knows that or not."

"We don't have time to dissect their every thought." Jasper turned to Opal. "What about now?"

Whatever they were talking about, Opal looked very hesitant at first. She cupped her chin as she peered at Chrysocolla, thinking, worrying, guessing. Maybe as a fusion herself, she had thoughts the others couldn't.

Something shifted in Opal's face, a sudden thought that she took a second to muse over. Her concern had morphed into curiosity—the look of someone coming up with an experiment of sorts. She just didn't say what thought she was considering.

"We might as well," she settled. She turned to Ruby and Sapphire, nodding her head towards the Temple. "Come on. I'm going to need some help with this."

They seemed curious, but followed nonetheless. Meanwhile, Jasper scratched at her cheek a bit awkwardly.

"Um…So you still want to stick around? Or do you want to go get some bio-fuel in you?"

"I think I'm good for now," Steven answered while he stuck the crinkled granola wrapper into his pocket. Chrysocolla was still lying on her side and was doodling sloppy images into the sand. At least now she was bored instead of frustrated. "So…Since you and Opal can read each other's thoughts now, can I know what we're doing?"

More discomfort. Jasper scratched the _other_ cheek. "I guess I should, but I'm going to need you to promise me that you won't let your knee-jerk reaction stop us from getting this over with."

"Those were a lot of words. But yeah, go ahead." Steven puffed his chest out. "I can do whatever it takes to save the day. You with me, Chrysocolla?"

"Harumph," said the teal-colored lump on the sand.

"So what's the plan?" Steven pressed his hands to his lips. "Are we going to do a support circle? I can speak first if you're not comfortable."

"I don't know what that is, but you said 'support,' so no." Jasper caught eye of something behind him, and raised her hand to point at it. " _That's_ the plan."

At first Steven couldn't make out what it was the others were pulling through the front door of his Room. He just saw that it was big and hulky, large enough for a struggle not to break the doorframe (funny, considering the house phone was still ripped from the cord via Sapphire.)

He still didn't see what it was until they finally got it out. Steven's throat closed up in an instant.

He wasn't an expert on weaponry, but he didn't have to be to see that the three of them were lugging a ten-foot-long, razor-sharp sword as wide as he was tall out of the door.

Steven realized what Plan C was and he didn't like it _at. all._


	2. The Theory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With their unexpected guest, Steven tries to figure out just how they can help her.

Steven knew that this…made sense. He knew how the physical forms of Gems worked. Take enough damage, and it poofed away, retreating within the Gem to regenerate. And, though the memory of Opal disappearing at Jasper's hand during their battle on the beach was not one that he could linger with for long, Steven knew that fusions worked the same. Chrysocolla would come undone, and after their regenerations, Lapis and Peridot would be themselves once again.

Steven knew that this made sense. That didn't mean he had to be okay with it.

Chrysocolla wasn't beaming, either. The second her eyes had laid on the sword, every limb curled up against her body. Steven remembered going to the dentist as a child, only able to watch as the sharp little tools glinted under the light, coming right for him. This was probably the ten million times-worse version of that.

For a minute, watching Chrysocolla's skin melt and her limbs tremble, Steven wondered just what it was the others were thinking. There was kicking a hornet's nest and then there was setting it on fire. Perhaps the others forgot quickly how Chrysocolla had shown up in the first place. Steven thought that at any second, they'd all be drowning under a tsunami. Or maybe she'd spare him. That would be worse.

Yet, despite her blown eyes and dripping skin, Chrysocolla did not protest. Even as Opal explained what they were going to do—explained that they were going to ram a sword into her body—Chrysocolla only nodded along, never protesting. Steven could only guess how she was reassuring herself in her mind.

Steven struggled to do the same. So he just helped her.

"It'll all be over in one second," he told her. She was letting him touch her arm. It wasn't _pleasant,_ feeling the skin dripping and slick between his fingers, but he wanted her to be as calm as she could be. "You'll probably just feel one little pinch, then it'll be like…going to sleep!"

"I don't sleep," she retorted. Her eyes hadn't looked at him even once. They were pinned straight on the sword far away.

"Right. Well, then it'll be like closing your eyes for a long time." Speaking of, Steven craned his head back to he could glimpse at the second pair on her back. They were staring at nothing, but their pupils were shrunken into pinpricks. Chrysocolla's skin went in rivulets around Lapis's Gem. "Sh, sh, sh…"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm shushing you."

"…Keep doing it."

"Sh, sh, sh…"

"Steven!" Opal's voice carried over from the far end of the beach. She and the others knelt beside the sword's hilt, herself and Jasper at the cross-guard, Sapphire and Ruby closer to the pommel. It almost looked like a battering ram instead of one of the largest swords to ever exist. "Are you coming?"

Steven had to draw the line in the sand somewhere. He could stomach a lot of things, but stabbing someone was not one of them. "I—I think I'm going to stay over here. Emotional support and all."

He could hear Jasper's snort even from so far away. "Just stay still."

With hardly a single grunt, the others heaved the sword's hilt upwards. With the shorter duo at the back, the length of the blade was slanted, almost going skyward. The last of the sun's rays gilded it orange. There was still so much distance between the two, but it felt that the razor-sharp point was far too close to Chrysocolla's middle. Steven prayed for them to be careful. Just too high, and the blade might go right through to Lapis's Gem.

Soon Lapis would be back. He could apologize for everything that had happened, and she could be free. Peridot wouldn't suffer anymore. Chrysocolla could come undone.

Chrysocolla stood up with her legs as straight as steel rods. Even at her side, her hand was above his head.

Even so, Steven asked, "Do you want me to hold your hand?"

Chrysocolla still didn't spare him a glance. But from behind him, Steven felt streams of water wrapping gently around his middle. He couldn't hold her hand in return, but he raised his own to rest atop the thumb close to his shoulder.

"Ready?" called Ruby.

Chrysocolla didn't so much as blink.

"Can we at least get a hand signal?"

She flicked a hand up into the air.

"Okay! Three…! Two…! _One…!_ "

They took off running. The sword came spearing for Chrysocolla's middle, and the water wrapped around Steven frothed and bubbled. Just a few more seconds, just a few more feet. It would all be over soon, one step closer to normal.

When at last he could feel the footprints vibrating through the sand, Steven squeezed his eye shut. Somehow he expected to feel some pain himself. Closer and closer, louder and louder, and Steven held his breath, waiting for the feeling of Chrysocolla poofing away.

Instead, the water suddenly froze, and he was hauled off his feet. There was a flurry of movement, the sound of breaking glass. His last glance of the others was overtaken in a slash of green, and the world was spinning.

Chrysocolla dropped him. He hit the sand with a thump and a grunt, and got a mouthful of sand in the process. Steven spat and sputtered. _The day is almost over and all I've eaten is one granola bar and sand,_ he thought dumbly.

As he struggled back to his feet, his back bumped against something solid—Chrysocolla's leg. The fusion was frozen once again, legs straight and arms still outstretched. Her arms of water had returned to their roiling currents. Most disturbing, though, was the unmistakable fear shining in her eyes. She was shaken to the core. Her fingers were still trembling.

Before them was a jagged glacier of seawater. The foam was frozen in place, almost looking like white lace wrapped around the green blades. Some were so sharp it looked like the points tapered away into nothing. The last sunlight stretching along the beach cast through it, casting peculiar shadows, almost emerald in color.

The blade of the sword was trapped. The point just barely reached out to the air, the rest fading away in the still green depths. Chrysocolla was just an arm's reach away from touching the blade.

For just a second, Steven was alarmed, worried that the others had either been frozen with the sword or speared on the razor ends of the glacier. But one moment more, and Opal's head peeked up over the top, blue eyes wide. Jasper came around, cautiously sidestepping from the points.

She tapped her fingertip on one, and even she flinched and drew back. Ruby and Sapphire came rounding with her.

Ruby leaned to Sapphire as she eyed the glacier from end to end. "Maybe we should've told her to close her eyes."

Opal hauled herself up top. Only someone with unearthly balance like hers could keep from slipping right back into the waves. Opal only peered down with her hands on her hips, hardly surprised at all. Assessing the results of an experiment. She even bent down to run a finger across the glassy surface. Steven heard the little _squeak._

Opal asked Chrysocolla, not unkindly, "I thought you said you were ready?"

"I—You—" Flustered, Chrysocolla crossed her arms over her chest. She refused to look at anyone. Again. "Well!"

Sapphire only asked, "Do you want to try again?"

Chrysocolla's fingers tightened on her arms, strong enough for the flesh to spill up between the gaps. "No…"

Ruby tugged on her headband. Already the glacier was beginning to melt, and when a little stream of droplets came down upon her hair, she sidestepped away with a pout. "Well, do you have any more ideas?"

"No!" Chrysocolla ran her hands down her face, so done with all of them, so done with all of this. Steven didn't even want to reach out and touch her; he knew it would've made her snap. "How many times to I have to say it?! I _don't know_ what to do. I _don't know_ why I can't just stop."

"Well." Jasper turned on her heel and pulled her cape off her shoulders so casually. She could've just blinked it away if she wanted it off, so Steven knew (with a sigh) that it was just for show. "I'm done with this."

"Jasper…" Steven almost begged. There were still three more willing to help, and already he felt like he was being left to carry the rest of the load.

"Look, you want to keep going, I won't stop you. But she's running out of patience and I'm not going to be here when she snaps." Jasper stopped to look at the blue cape folded up in her hands. It was the second time she'd done it that day. What was so interesting about her cape that kept pulling her short? "I'm going to your Room for a bit. I need some references for the cave."

So Jasper walked away ("Cave?" asked Ruby) and Steven was left with a group with no idea what to do next. Chrysocolla even looked a bit hurt at Jasper's leave. She'd gone back to making nonsensical shapes in the sand.

"Maybe Ruby had a point," Opal mused aloud. She slid off the glacier with an elegance Steven could only dream of having. "Maybe if we get you some blindfolds—"

"Just—!" Chrysocolla clawed her fingers into the sand. The glacier was steadily melting now, the saltwater running into the sand and soaking up in the shoreline. "Just stop."

Opal opened her mouth to say something, but thought better against it. Steven stepped closer and finally touched her arm, but she drew it back just as quickly. "Chrysocolla—"

"I was stupid for coming here. I should've known you weren't going to help me."

"It's not that we don't _want_ to. We've been trying! We just don't know what to do, just like you."

Chrysocolla stood up to her feet, brushing sand off of her body. She was glaring down at her feet with a curl to her lip, but Steven did not miss the moisture that was building in her eyes. She wasn't just frustrated, she was humiliated, and couldn't stand being here anymore.

"Just forget it." She flicked out her arms of water—in one quick motion, the fingers had turned into feathers. Already she was crouching for a head start. "I'll just deal with it."

"No, no, no, no!"

Steven didn't know what else to do but throw himself onto her. He ended up clinging to her leg like a child, but hey, it worked. The tears blinked away as Chrysocolla boggled down at him. She tried to shake him off, but he held tight.

"We're going to help you, Chrysocolla, I promise." Not wanting to make her uncomfortable any longer, Steven unwound himself from her. She stayed. "But we…We need some more time, okay? It's only been a day."

"It's been a day for _you._ "

Steven pursed his lips together. It was so hard, trying to reason with her, but keeping in mind everything she'd gone through. He worried his big mouth was going to send her right back into the sea. That he was going to lose Lapis again.

"That's what I'm saying. I'm sorry you've had to deal with all of this, Chrysocolla, but you just need to hang on. Look, we're all really, really tired right now, and none of us are happy. Why don't we rest tonight and come back tomorrow? I'm sure we'll come up with a whole bunch of ideas between now and then!"

Chrysocolla's watery wings twitched again. As he spoke, she glared away from him, shoulders hunching forward. Steven worried for just a second that everything he said was going in one ear and out the other—well, Gems didn't have ears, but the point still stood. He just didn't know what else to say. Would he even want to hear all of this if he was in her shoes?

"Fine. Fine!" Chrysocolla sat back down with a thump that sent Steven and the others up a few inches. She folded her arms over her chest and never minded the waves that lapped at her legs. "I'll just wait. Like I've been waiting this whole time. What's another day for me, right?"

Steven let out a breath, half in relief, half in frustration. He'd said they'd take the night, but even he had to admit he wasn't sure if he could come up with any other ideas. He was hardly more of an expert in this than Chrysocolla was.

He sent a look to Opal, but she wasn't even looking at Chrysocolla anymore. She'd gone back to tapping her finger on her chin, thinking, thinking, thinking. He sort of wished she would share with the class.

Ruby took a questioning step towards the Room, followed by Sapphire. Steven couldn't blame them for hesitating. It wasn't often they got to "call it a night."

Still, he went back to Chrysocolla, just close enough for her to see him. He probably reeked of saltwater by now, being dunked into the ocean time and time again. "What are you going to do tonight?"

"Does it matter?" Chrysocolla snapped back, but her lips sealed shut just as soon as she'd said it. Again, Steven was left to wonder if that was Lapis and Peridot at odds, or Chrysocolla herself regretting her words. "Maybe I'll crawl back into the water."

Steven took a look back into the sea. The sun was gone now, leaving just a few wisps of pink on the horizon, the rest of the sky giving way to velvety purple. The endless waves look calm and almost still. A picturesque sight if he'd ever seen one, but just under the surface was a void that only got darker and darker and darker the further in you went. Both beautiful and horrifying. And it had been Chrysocolla's home sweet home for so long. Not even seeing a ray of sunshine.

Steven couldn't keep it contained anymore. "Why don't you just come in with us?"

Chrysocolla at first only raised a brow at him. The others gave him more response: Opal scratching her cheek, Sapphire grimacing, and Ruby cutting her hand at her neck in a _"Don't"_ motion. Steven tried not to be frustrated with them. For as sympathetic as he was to Chrysocolla, and as dear a friend as Lapis was to him, they'd all seen the worst of her.

"Fine." Chrysocolla stood up and turned for the Room—the Crystal Gems correcting themselves quickly. "But just for tonight."

Steven was elated, to say the least. The others, not so much. But none of them protested. They all walked back into the Room, and Steven remembered that if Chrysocolla hadn't come when she did, he would probably be back in his cot at It's A Wash.

* * *

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"I thought you hated this place!"

Jasper let the measuring tape snap back into its reel and stood to her feet. Done with the bookshelf, she went to the kitchen island instead. Steven picked up his microwave dinner so she could spread the tape along the surface's width. Earlier, he'd had to wait for her to stop measuring the tub just so he could get a shower. Even now she was eyeballing the towel wrapped around his hair as if she could take inspiration from it, too.

"Who said I didn't?" So concentrated was she that her voice was hardly more than a murmur. How was she managing to keep up with all the measurements? Was her memory that good?

Propped up in the corner, Chrysocolla sneered at Jasper in disbelief. She was the biggest person in the room, but she still looked shrunken in, avoiding them all with every last centimeter she could get. "Then why are you making a _house?"_

"Gotta stay somewhere." Jasper moved onto the stools. Steven hopped to the next one over. "Have any décor tips?"

Chrysocolla scoffed and left it at that. This had been her stay in the Room thus far: occasional biting remarks, then lasting silence. She hadn't shown a glimpse of violence since she'd been in, but still wary of leaving her alone, the others stayed in the Room with her. It was getting quite cramped now. Chrysocolla had stiffened when any of them were as close as the sofa, so Ruby was left sitting up in Steven's loft with her feet dangling over the edge. Sapphire sat on the kitchen counter. It was Steven who suggested hot chocolate and Opal who offered to make it, so she was stirring the pot on the stove.

Steven's phone pinged one last time with nothing but a thumbs up emoji from Greg. Steven had told him that he was going to explain tomorrow, but he'd be back in the Room for tonight. Steven took a look back up to his loft, wary of catching Ruby's eye. It wasn't completely barren, but it still felt empty. Anyone could tell there was someone missing.

While he had his phone in hand, he thought about texting Connie again. The longer she stayed quiet, the more worried he got. He wasn't sure why…surely Connie was safe. Maybe she was just so busy. She was easily the smartest person he knew and that knowledge had to be absorbed.

Silence returned, thick and scratchy. The spoon in Opal's hand scraped against the side of the pot. Jasper zipped up the tape again.

"So…" Steven spun around on the stool and smiled at their guest. "How we doing?"

Chrysocolla's gaze was withering. "I'm still here. So."

 _Right…_ "Maybe we should watch a movie tonight! I've got _The Crying Breakfast Friends Movie_ on DVD!"

Opal's nose-wrinkled response was, "They made a _movie?"_ Chrysocolla's own nose-wrinkled response was, "You've got the _what_ on _what?"_

Ruby crossed her legs on the edge of the loft. "It's a cartoon."

"A what?"

"Okay, let me get some paper."

While Ruby took it upon herself to explain what _Crying Breakfast Friends_ was—which shouldn't be too hard, because…well, read the label—Steven chucked the empty plastic tray into the garbage and cleaned off his fork in the sink. Not that he had anything particularly against microwaved Salisbury steak, but he was looking forward to washing it down with some non-microwaved hot cocoa.

Opal had opened the cabinet, and while pushing aside bottles and boxes, had become utterly fascinated with the nutrition facts on a bottle of vanilla extract. It took Sapphire nudging her arm to remember that she had liquid over a hot stovepipe.

(This is why Opal didn't cook much. A few too many times of almost calling the fire department.)

"Okay, all good," Opal called as she turned the flame off. She carefully tipped hot cocoa into the five mugs set on the counter. Or rather, four mugs and one bowl for their slightly larger guest.

Steven, of course, wasted no time in diving for his mug—forgetful though she might be, Opal's hot cocoa came straight from the heavens. But even as he took a careful sip and savored in sweet, warm, chocolatey goodness, watching Opal made him pause. She'd taken out the pepper shaker and was shaking it into her mug, as casually as someone adding sugar to their coffee.

How long ago was it that Amethyst and Pearl shared their story in the early hours of morning? Close to a week, if he was right. A _week._ It felt like this rift that was torn between all of them had been there for months. This was how well they were doing after a _week?_

Jasper had exposed the Crystal Gems at his birthday party, they'd gone to the Watermelons' island to face the Cluster, Steven and Star met it inside its own mind, the Cluster was launched into space, Steven went to stay with his father, he and Jasper went to the Beta Kindergarten to talk about Everything…All in the span of seven days. Wow.

For some reason, Steven felt that stupid, petty desire just to be angry again. He hated being angry. Who wouldn't? But he felt like he had to stand his ground longer, because even though he was one to forgive and forget, forgiveness given too soon wouldn't do any good. What if he forgave the Crystal Gems after one week of pouting, so they decided that they could do whatever, and keep however many secrets from now on because what were the consequences? He would just come around in the end.

And there he went again, completely twisting his family into the monsters that they are not. Maybe this was what happened when you got angry for longer than you've ever been in your life. Your mind started playing tricks on you. Logic and reason get warped.

He didn't realize that he was staring until he'd followed Opal's mug all the way up to her mouth and caught her blue eyes looking back at him. She didn't make a point of staring back, didn't use the opportunity to give him a soft, apologetic look. But she did have _a_ look, one he couldn't pinpoint. It stayed as she took a glance over at Chrysocolla, now staring squinty-eyed at the papers Ruby was showing her.

Opal took another hearty swig of cocoa and asked, "Do you think you and I could talk for a second?"

Despite himself, Steven feels dread in his gut. He hoped Opal wasn't trying to have That Talk now. It would be like Ruby and Sapphire on the island all over again. Maybe it was the odd edge to Opal's voice that made him say, "Sure."

He and Opal both leaned closer, but it wasn't doing them any good. Even if they all stood as far apart as possible, everyone was in earshot. Ruby kept trying to explain _Crying Breakfast Friends_ to a very distressed Chrysocolla, Jasper kept walking around with her measuring tape in hand, and Sapphire was making rounds to all of them to deliver hot chocolate—Chrysocolla only looking more despairing when she got her bowl in the midst of Ruby's speech.

Finally Opal just tugged him into the bathroom and shut the door behind them. The bathroom wasn't tiny, but neither was it Opal-sized, and the fusion had to sit down on the floor with her knees awkwardly bent just to get slightly comfortable. Steam was still on the mirror from his shower.

"You know more about Lapis than I do," she said. "What all is she angry about?"

Relieved though he was, Steven contemplated it carefully. There was being trapped in the mirror for so long, of course. Her blaming of the Crystal Gems for it happening, or at least unwittingly keeping her prisoner. Her frustration with being unable to leave Earth, and even when that was solved, her despair when she came back to a Homeworld that was nothing like she remembered it. _Homeworld_ taking her as prisoner, being forced to give up her friend's location against her will, being tossed and dragged around like she was nothing. And of course, all this time spent trapped with Peridot.

He relayed this to her as best as he could. He caught glimpses of guilt in her eyes, especially when he spoke of the mirror, but mostly she was back to thinking. She didn't even look at Steven as he spoke, as if just seeing him would distract her from her thought process.

When he finished, Opal sighed, "I saw some more of Peridot when we got separated on the ship. She doesn't get any respect—no Peridots do. She seems to pride herself on her work, so she can't handle it when it gets sabotaged. I imagine the chance of taking us down was euphoric for her. A Peridot bringing in a bunch of rebels…"

Opal cracked open the door just enough to catch a peek of Chrysocolla outside. Now several of Ruby's pages were on the floor, and Chrysocolla was squeezing her temples, eyes narrowed and mouth agape as she just _tried_ to comprehend the words that were coming from Ruby's mouth. Thankfully she did not spot them, and Opal quietly shut the door again.

"I have a theory," Opal said, "and I would like your input."

Steven sat down cross-legged in front of her, holding his hot chocolate with both hands. "Input ready."

Her blue eyes narrowed back at the door. "I'm wondering if Chrysocolla isn't coming undone because maybe they don't want to."

Steven couldn't help but blink and snake his neck back. He never liked to point at Opal's forgetfulness every time he questioned her; he thought it was mocking at best. But now he was genuinely curious if she'd forgotten how many times Chrysocolla had point-blank told them how much she wants to come apart.

"Um." He took a sip of hot chocolate, unsure of what else to do. Not sarcastically, he asked, "Could Opal present the court with some evidence?"

"I thought maybe _you_ could." Opal fiddled with her fingers. "You saw them in your dreams. What were they doing? What were they like?"

Steven tried to recall, but like most dreams, the images had began to fade and dissolve. He remembered the waterfalls and the seafoam, but mostly how Lapis and Peridot bit at him and screamed at him—one telling him to go away, the other yelling at him to come to them. The only time they were together in their own fusion was when they gave away to Chrysocolla.

"Still really, really, _really_ mad." Opal urged him on. "Lapis wanted me to leave her alone and choose for herself. Peridot wanted to get out, but she was still angry at us…"

"So only Peridot wanted out?"

"Kind of…? Lapis didn't want to be there, but…She said she wanted to choose the prison she got to stay in."

Again, remorse flashed across Opal's face. Steven had never asked her if she knew about the Gem in the mirror. Or if she knew that the Gem was still alive and kicking. There had been just a few seconds after the ship had crashed that they and Lapis were…fine. Not hugging and cheering, still tense, but fine. Maybe that was their chance at forgiveness.

But as Steven thought over his own words with Opal, he thought aloud, "Someone can trap someone else in a fusion."

"They can. Remember Sunstone?" There was a quick bitter note as she said it, but it was gone just as quickly. Angry at what happened, not at Ruby. "I've never done it, but I imagine it would take a lot of strength. But if Lapis isn't trying to trap Peridot…"

She left him to finish it. "…then Peridot isn't trapped at all?"

"Exactly. Even though I was going through all these attempts, I wasn't really buying it."

"What do you mean?"

"Well…"

A stream of light spilled out of Pearl's Gem. Steven scooched back so it could form on the floor, morphing into a humanoid shape. "First we thought that maybe they were too tense to unfuse…" Then the humanoid split apart into two smaller shapes. "…but negative emotions like fear and anger, especially if they're for different reasons, usually split apart fusions in an instant."

Steven took another sip of hot chocolate and regretted not taking more when it was still piping hot—though he was listening. "What about not really knowing how? You said Peridot was a first-timer."

"Yeah, but that's not really how it works…Look."

Another image appeared. This time the humanoid was on a tightrope, carefully teetering with a long bar in its hands. Steven let out an "aw"—it was cute.

"It might not always feel like it, but fusions take a lot of balance." The humanoid suddenly crossed the tightrope end-to-end at casual speed, practically strolling. "Some Gems have no problem staying together at all." Then the humanoid went back to turn, but now it was slow and fearful, sometimes jolting back to balance when the bar turned too far to one side. "But others really struggle to stay on the same page. If you wanted to come undone, you'd just do it." Finally the humanoid fell and disappeared—and Steven let out another, more grieving "aw." "It's like…When Jasper got me on the beach, I didn't have to _try_ to poof. It was out of my control; it just happened."

It did make sense. Steven supposed he'd come up with this image of Peridot and Lapis trying to open a locked door and failing. Now he wondered if the door was locked all.

Which left the possibility that Opal had brought up, which…still didn't make sense. "But they _don't_ want to stay together."

Opal frowned and took a sip of her own cocoa. "Sometimes…people don't like to admit to their own feelings, Steven. So much that they convince themselves they aren't there at all."

"So…You think Chrysocolla is in denial?"

"Like I said, it's just a theory. I've never heard of a fusion that wanted to stop not being able to." Opal tossed back the rest of her cocoa, and _gah,_ Steven's throat burned at the thought of all the pepper going down with it. "What do you think?"

Well, Steven thought it was as good a theory as any other—okay, the other theories weren't good at all, but point still made—but that left the big, looming question to answer:

"Why?"

She shrugged. "Maybe they've gotten so used to it they're scared of what life will be like when it stops. In Chrysocolla, Lapis doesn't have to deal with us or Homeworld and Peridot doesn't have to worry about higher-ups pushing her around…Can you think of any reason?"

Steven tapped on his chin, thinking. He really, really couldn't. Everything he's learned has told him that Lapis and Peridot despise each other and despise being together. He can't think of a single reason for there to be so much as a droplet of balance between them.

"The jury has come to its ruling." Steven used his mug as a gavel on the sink. And instantly regretted it, because the sound pierced through his eardrums. "Ow—We shall simply ask Miss Chrysocolla why she might want to stay together."

He moved for the door, but Opal gently set her hand on his belly to stop him. She set forth her final image: a distant view of the Temple…being eaten by a tsunami.

"Oh. Right." He hesitated for what to say next. "What if we got her really, really, _really_ comfortable first? I'm talking pillow fort, junk food, movie binge."

"I can try, but you know how intense I get with pillow forts."

"I just don't get how you got the indoor plumbing. How?"

"I don't even know, Steven, I blacked out at some point."

Light though the talk was…like most similar moments over the past day, it reminded him that the norm wasn't really the norm anymore. This moment of respite between them shouldn't have been out-of-the-ordinary, yet it was.

Which made him think, and ask aloud, "Why are you only asking me?"

She blinked at him. "Huh?"

"I mean, why didn't you ask Ruby and Sapphire what they thought?"

"Ruby's talking to Chrysocolla still," Opal answered quickly. Too quickly. And said nothing of Sapphire, idly sitting on the kitchen counter. "And besides, you know Lapis better, so…"

It was so very clear that she was lying, but it took a second for Steven to realize what the truth was. She was singling him out, trying to include him. She wanted there to be a moment with just the two of them, like she was the captain and he was her first mate.

Now that he thought about it…Opal had pulled back more than Ruby or Sapphire. She wasn't with them when they were in the hut on the Watermelon Island. She didn't come along in the middle of the night to bring him things from his Room he didn't ask for. While Ruby and Sapphire were mingling outside the Temple when he and Jasper needed to get to the Warp Pad, Opal was tucked away inside.

She saw him with Jasper. She knew they were going somewhere, and she didn't stop them, just frowned as they disappeared.

Maybe the obvious conclusion was that she was jealous, but no, that didn't sound right. But maybe seeing how comfortable Steven was with the Gem who had split her apart, insulted her, come for her again…

Was Steven guilty? He didn't even know.

He tried to bring his mind back to Chrysocolla, and once again nudged the door open. Now the poor fusion just looked braindead. Ruby had a pile of papers on her feet and was clearly desperate to find _some way_ to explain a cartoon about crying breakfast foods to her. Steven wasn't fooled by the amusing scene. Chrysocolla was tense, taut like a wire. She'd snapped at them all day, and the entire ocean was right outside if she was ever going to come completely undone.

Steven tried, but he just couldn't think of any possible way to _nicely_ ask why Peridot and Lapis might still want to be together. Stars, in his dream, they wouldn't _stop_ telling him how they felt. He'd had nightmares just from the image of Peridot snarling at him to—

That was finally when the idea came to Steven. Not like a lightbulb lighting up over his head, but like a sledgehammer beating him on the temple with a cry of _Took you long enough!_

"Come on, Opal. I know what we need to do."

The two of them all but burst back into the living room, but the world didn't stop spinning for them. Ruby realized she was out of paper and scrambled with the ones she already had. Sapphire tried to look like she wasn't awkwardly waiting for them to come back. Jasper was trying to measure the couch pillows—a task that was making her grit her teeth, because every time she tightened the tape, the plush would squeeze with it.

Chrysocolla didn't even seem sentient anymore as Ruby said, "I just don't know what you're not getting. They're foods that cry."

Chrysocolla whispered like a death rattle, _"Why."_

"Because they're sad! Why do _you_ cry?!"

"Guys! We have an idea!"

That got all attention on them. Chrysocolla came back to life enough to blink at him, then set her jaw as she waited for what he would say next. Sapphire drifted over from the kitchen. Jasper zipped up her tape.

"Chrysocolla, you remember when I came to you guys while you were still in the ocean." It wasn't a question. She nodded her head once, slowly. "What did _you_ do? What were you doing when that happened?"

Chrysocolla pulled her knees up to her chest and flitted her eyes around the room uncomfortably. She was just stuck with an audience, listening to stories of her lowest points. Steven took a step closer just to try and block everyone else out.

Finally, she mumbled, "I don't know…Nothing ever happened down there, and sometimes we got too tired to even fight each other. So I just…stopped for a while. And we would end up there. _I don't know…_ "

"No, no, that's good! It's like when you were meditating with Opal this morning, right?" She shrugged. "Do you think you could do that again?"

"Why?"

"Because I need to talk to Lapis and Peridot again. And the only way I can do that is by going back to where we were. In my dreams."

Chrysocolla's eyes went wide, but not with fear—not at first. In fact, there was something almost like hope there. As if she, too, realized the opportunity. But just as quickly, the apprehension returned. She looked away, legs drawing closer, her watering arms bubbling. Scared. Not wanting to hurt anymore.

"I don't want to go back there."

"I know you don't. I was there, too—trust me, _I remember how scary it was._ " He reached out and just barely set his hand on her arm, hardly even brushing against it. "But I'm going to be there, too. You won't be alone. It'll only be for a minute—I think I know how to help you guys."

"How?"

He chewed on the inside of his cheek. "I can't tell you. Just trust—yourself. Trust that you can figure out what to do."

He almost said "me," caught himself, and was grateful for it. As soon as he said "yourself," Chrysocolla turned back to him. Between Lapis and Peridot both, he wondered just how long it had been to hear any kind of faith, any encouragement.

Chrysocolla unwound her arms from her legs—she kept them close to her chest, but breathed out, "Okay."

"Okay?" She nodded. "Okay. Go ahead."

He didn't want to just stare her down until she drifted away, so Steven turned away from her at that. The others were all blinking at him, surprised with his gusto. Jasper had a brow raised. "What's going on?"

"I am going to go to sleep."

He dashed up the stairs to his loft as fast as he could—behind him, Jasper quipped with much confusion, "Our hero…?"

They didn't follow him up, but they were watching him as he went to his bed. Question marks were clear as day on their faces, but Steven looked down at Chrysocolla instead. She already closed her eyes, and if he squinted, he thought that maybe he could see her head beginning to fall.

"I'm confused," said Ruby. "If that wasn't obvious."

"Remember when I thought Lapis was trying to call out to me, but it was just Chrysocolla?" They nodded with various speeds—except Jasper, who was looking all over the room as if to find an explanation herself. "If I can do that again, I can talk to Peridot and Lapis and figure out what's going on. Just the three of us."

"Can you do that?" Sapphire asked. One of her hands was twiddling with her skirt. "On command?"

"Probably not. But Star will help me."

Steven threw his comforter back—did it always smell so flowery? Did his nose get reset when he went o It's A Wash?—and kicked off his shoes. Downstairs, Ruby questioned, "They will?"

("Who's Star?" asked Jasper.)

"Maybe." Steven crawled under the blankets, fluffed his pillow. "I haven't talked to them since everything that happened with the Cluster, but maybe I can reach out to them."

Opal frowned. "Why haven't you talked to them since the Cluster?"

("Seriously, who is Star?")

"It's…a long story. Just—trust me on this, okay?"

Though not without exchanging some wary glances, the Crystal Gems finally nodded.

Steven turned over in his bed, pulled the blankets up to his neck, and closed his eyes. Of course, he knew that he wasn't going to be able to just drift to sleep on command, so as he tried to block out every last decibel of sound he could, he willed his mind to speak.

_Star. Can you hear me?_

No response. Steven remained as awake as ever.

_I know you're probably exhausted right now. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that we haven't talked._

_I thought maybe you wanted to be alone for a while._

_But now I need your help._

_Can you bring me back to Lapis and Peridot? Or, can you just take me under?_

Though he felt the tension melt away from his bones, felt the blanket weigh down on his body, he was hardly any closer to sleep. Just one movement and he'd be springing back to alertness.

_I'll be with you the whole time, Star. You don't have to be scared. What happened with the Cluster isn't going to happen again, I promise._

_I'm your friend, Star. I don't want you to get hurt, ever. I just need your help._

Finally, his limbs started to go light. His eyes stayed shut, no longer fluttering. He even snuggled into his pillow, embracing sleep. It almost felt like he wasn't going on a mission at all.

("So I guess I'm just going to stay in the dark here, huh?"

"Would you _shush_?!")

_It's okay, Star. Just take it easy. I'll be there soon._

Then he was gone.


	3. The Shore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven delves into Chrysocolla's mind for answers.

Steven was used to the eerie environments he often met Star in. Still, the boat was a surprise.

It was just a simple, wooden, almost canoe-like thing that Steven fit snugly inside. The end curled down to hold onto an oil lamp whose flickering yellow light did not accomplish much. Steven couldn’t see the water he drifted on, only the ripples that the boat left on his perfect mirror image. He was surrounded by darkness—though he supposed the thin silvery line that was the horizon told him there was _somewhere_ —yet he could see himself and the boat clearly.

“Star?” he called out. He only then realized that the boat had paddles hooked on the sides. He took hold and pushed and pulled. All he could tell was his reflection in the “water” just rippled more. “Are you there?”

“Over here.”

Finally he spotted a little dot on the horizon that was a different shade of black than everything else—it grew much, much faster than he thought it would. Star was hovering above a tiny little island that just looked like a cluster of glimmering black rocks. They probably could’ve just floated over on their own, but they waited until Steven paddled the boat forward to hover “on board.” The island crumbled away at once.

As Star lowered down into the boat as if to sit, Steven thought of what he should say first.

“’Sup” is what he settled on.

“’Sup” is what Star answered with.

“Um…How have you been?”

“Bored. But a good bored. I just needed to do nothing for a while. Oh, hey, check this out.”

Star spun in circles over and over and over, so fast that their black glow created a neon gray O in the air. “I found out I can do this.”

“That’s awesome!”

Star slowed to a stop. Unlike Steven, their image did not perfectly reflect in the water. Whereas Steven saw his twin, Star looked like heat-shimmer. “I’m sorry for not talking or anything. I needed a break.”

“No, it’s okay.” Steven fidgeted on his seat. Two minutes in and all this rowing was already making his shoulders ache. “You’re not hurt or anything, are you?”

“No…not hurt, just…Overwhelmed. I didn’t know I could do all that stuff.” Star drifted closer to the edge of the boat, looking at their shimmering reflection. “I just—still don’t know what I am. I just know that I understood how the Cluster felt.”

Steven had tried to do some hardcore brainstorming himself over the matter, and he, too, had come up short. What _was_ Star that they existed, just not in his world? That he could walk and talk to them in his dreams, but awake, he could only call out to them until they pulled him under? The Cluster and Star could both pull him into their “mind palaces,” but the Cluster was thousands upon thousands of Gems and Star was just one person.

“I’m sure there’s still an answer,” he tried to assure them. “We just haven’t found it yet.”

“Maybe,” Star sighed. “Anyway. What’s been going on with you?”

“Well…The Cluster is gone now. Jasper left after everything was over and stayed in the ocean for a few days until she went to a cave not that far from the Temple. Now she has a house there and I went to go see her and talk, and she said she just doesn’t know what to do now, but she wanted to take me somewhere. We had to sneak back into the Temple because me and the others still aren’t on big speaking terms right now, but we made it to the Warp Pad and she took us to the Beta Kindergarten and told me a bunch of stuff about her. Homeworld is ruled by the Diamonds, and the Earth used to belong to Pink Diamond, and then Mom started the war and Jasper was made to help with that and she was really close to Pink Diamond but then one day when the war was really, really bad Pink Diamond lost it and went to the Beta Kindergarten to make more Gems herself because they weren’t doing it fast enough, but when she was doing that she made a lot of Injectors explode and she got shattered, and Jasper was really, really broken up about it because she cared about Pink Diamond a lot and after that and the war the other Diamonds kind of just passed her around. So Jasper was really mad at Mom because she was kinda-sorta responsible for what happened to Pink Diamond and she hates the Earth because she doesn’t see that much point in it or why Mom would want to protect it so much _but_ she also doesn’t want the Earth to be destroyed because it was Pink Diamonds.”

Steven took a deep breath.

“So after that we went home and right when we got there something started coming out of the ocean and a huge tidal wave hit the beach. It turned out it was Chrysocolla and she needed help because she didn’t want to be fused anymore but didn’t know how to stop. So first we tried to get her to meditate and calm down, then we tried to pull her apart ourselves, and then we tried to poof her, but nothing worked. So now Chrysocolla is in my Room and we were trying to figure out how to help her and Opal said that maybe Chrysocolla doesn’t _want_ to unfuse but we can’t really ask her why without her blowing up again so I thought maybe you could help us out by bringing me here so we could go see Chrysocolla and Lapis and Peridot together and see what the problem is.”

A fair length of silence followed when he was done. He imagined Star would be blinking at him if they had eyes.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Steven tried to catch his breath and kept on paddling. He hoped they had made some kind of progress now, because he still only saw the dark sea. “You don’t mind, do you? You can…hang back while we talk.”

“No, it’s fine. Like I said, I’m bored.” Star shifted just a little—Steven was pretty sure they’d just turned around to look forward. “Maybe helping Chrysocolla can help me figure out what I am and why I’m here.”

Steven smiled his agreement. Star might be safe here, but they weren’t exactly happy, and if there was some chance of finding a way to get them out of this place and into the real world, he was going to take it. He still wanted to show Star all the best parts of being alive, like walking down the beach and eating fry bits and all kinds of amazing things.

“I think we’re here?”

Steven craned to see forward, but he didn’t have to. The shore came to meet _them_ —it rammed into the front of the boat hard enough for Steven to wheeze and almost topple over.

What laid before them finally looked physical, but not much. It was as if they’d come right up to a frozen lake, but the glassy surface was aqua-green, laced with trapped bubbles. It was just transparent enough to know it was just a layer, nothing more, yet Steven feared that it wasn’t going to be invisible water beneath if it broke. Just—darkness.

The glow of the lantern didn’t stretch far, but where else were they to go? Steven carefully climbed out of the boat and onto the “ice.” It really wasn’t. It wasn’t cold or frosty, just frozen.

“Stay close?” he said to Star. Knowing how his last dream with Chrysocolla and her components had gone, he had no idea what he was to expect this time around.

“I’ve got your back,” Star affirmed.

They walked on in silence for what could’ve been seconds or minutes or hours. The light of the lamp faded away, but the ice beneath them was giving off its own peculiar glow, like plankton in the ocean.

Finally, he saw something on the horizon, so large and faraway he wondered if it was some kind of cloud. But as he drew closer, he heard splashing. It wasn’t water, it was the same mercury-like liquid that he’d paddled through over here, now spilling down in two great rivulets into a jagged opening in the ice. The streams looked like melted silver. And trailing his eyes up, he saw that they spilled from two eyes that stared into nothing.

It was Chrysocolla—a massive sculpture of green ice in her image. Her still face was exhausted, not even fighting against the tears spilling from her eyes. Her arms disappeared into the frozen ground at the elbow, and it took a moment to find her other pair: made of hollow frost so paper-thin it might as well have been tissue paper.

She was smaller than the Temple, still colossal, but even as a still statue, Steven couldn’t help but shake the feeling that she was alive, somehow. Almost unaware what had become of her body.

“Um…” Star drifted closer to his ear. “Do you think she’s…awake?”

Steven cupped his hands around his mouth and called, _“Chrysocolla!”_ But the sound only echoed out into the abyss, _Chrysocolla, Chrysocolla, Chrysocolla—_ and as it faded away it sounded less like an echo and more like voices were repeating it back to him.

Unease crawled up Steven’s spine as he looked left and right, but only found the ever-stretching horizon. He didn’t see Lapis or Peridot anywhere. Was he supposed to do something here? He’d never had to figure out a puzzle of any sort in this plane, he was always at the mercy of whatever it did to him.

“Hey, what’s that in her forehead?”

Steven followed Star’s “gaze,” and though he couldn’t tell what it was, he knew what they meant. There was something odd about the Gem in Chrysocolla’s forehead, a cloudy patch of discoloration. They came closer, the roar of the waterfalls only growing louder, and it wasn’t until Steven had his feet at the rim of the hole that he realized what it was.

Peridot was frozen inside of Chrysocolla’s Gem— _her_ Gem. She was suspended in place, legs pulled to her chest and arms pulled tight around them, but her eyes were closed as serenely as someone in a deep sleep. Her Gem shined a neon green even trapped in the ice.

There was also something about her that just seemed a bit odd to Steven. He remembered back when Chrysocolla fused for the first time, how parts of Peridot had just fallen into the water instead of fusing with her body—the bracers on her arms, her clunky feet, the floating cylinders she used for fingers. Now her arms were bare and her feet were just covered in her suit, but he still couldn’t shake that something was off with them.

It didn’t matter. What _did_ matter was that he’d found Peridot, and now he had an idea where Lapis would be. Star must have figured it out a second prior—he tailed them in rounding around Chrysocolla’s body, walking in the gap between her arm of ice and her arm of frost.

Two more waterfalls spilled from her second pair of eyes, but they dribbled down the slope of her back and seeped into a fine crevice around her waist. Lapis Lazuli was also suspended in her Gem. She was not so tightly wound as Peridot, legs loose and arms just barely folded together, but she shared the same serenity in her face. Her real Gem was also giving off an electric blue glow.

“Lapis?” he called out. She did not answer.

The little crevice that the eyes cried down into was hardly more than a foot wide. It wasn’t hard for him to lean over and finally touch Chrysocolla’s glacier. It was dry—his hands didn’t slip—and the slope of the back was rather steep. So, with one short, strong push, Steven hauled himself up. It wasn’t going to be an easy climb, but he should manage.

“Catch me if I fall?” he chuckled to Star.

They responded, “Please do not.”

The climb up was short, but Steven still felt like he was impossibly high up when he was done. Still, there Lapis was. The only thing separating her from Steven was the ice, as thin as a sheet of glass. Perhaps just as strong, but something told Steven he shouldn’t try to just break through.

Still, he pressed his palm against it…and almost gasped when it just gave way.

It had looked so solid and physical, but now it rippled around his hand like water. He pushed forward, deeper. He finally touched Lapis’ arm, but no amount of pressure could shift her. She was as statuesque as the glacier she was trapped in. Even one hard tug was useless.

Star crept closer, too, and carefully inched their way through. No sooner had they just broken the surface did they suddenly rear back, shouting, “Whoa!”

“What?” Steven immediately worried. “Did it hurt you?”

“No, just—look!”

Star went in once again. Should Steven hold his breath? Star didn’t need air. Just to be safe, he took in a deep breath and held it before ducking in himself.

He was not looking at the hollow space in Chrysocolla’s back that Lapis occupied.

Lapis was still there, still suspended, but everything around them was different. The whole place looked like a coral reef—an expanse of sand beneath them, and not so far above, the glimmering surface of the water. There just wasn’t any…well, coral. It just kept going and going. It was as beautiful as it was unnerving, helped in no small part to the mirror.

Steven recognized it. The mirror Lapis had been trapped in for so long. It stood slanted with the handle sunken into the sand, as large and desolate-looking as underwater ruins. Instead of their reflections, the glass only showed a blank grayish slate.

Steven looked back at Star. The two of them looked like they were just appearing out of nothing, reaching in from sheer space.

Star sighed. “Can’t we ever go somewhere _normal?”_

He was about to apologize, but cut himself off to exclaim, “Look!”

The glass of the mirror was morphing, color seeping in and taking shape. Purples, blues, reds, all just blobs moving across the surface, yet somehow Steven knew what they were going to form before they did.

It was supposed to be Ruby, Sapphire, and Opal, but the most grisly, unsettling caricatures of them. Some parts of them were unnaturally long, others unnaturally thick, all their colors just _off_ in some way or another. Most upsetting was their faces—their eyes and mouths were just glassy slashes, the latter twisted up into horrible smiles.

“We should Bubble it,” Opal said without moving her mouth. It _almost_ sounded like her. Just different enough to make a chill run down Steven’s back. _“Just to be safe.”_

“It’s just a piece of junk,” Ruby said in the same not-quite-right voice. She giggled. “Who cares?”

Sapphire trilled, “Nothing to worry about!” And then, deeper, _grittier, “Nothing.”_

Then they all melted again. Their colors mixed together into one dark shape, almost like a cloaked figure.

Then eyes started to pop up on its face. Two, six, twelve.

The imitation of Blue Diamond’s voice monotoned, “She knows where they are. Use her.”

From her form came Jasper. Her face was nothing more than a jagged shape. The stripes on her skin wriggled like worms. She reached out to the mirror’s surface, and her palm swelled until everything went dark again.

Steven hadn’t realized before, but it was getting darker outside of the surface, too. Light was no longer glimmering through the water. It was murky and stormy, and Steven hesitated to duck back into the safety of the outside world.

Something bad was about to happen. He just knew it.

The mirror itself gave a lurch, a quiet _creeeeeak_ through the sand as it pulled itself upright. Steven’s hand tightened on Lapis’ arm before he could help it. The blue Gem didn’t stir other than the slide fluttering of her eyelids. This was all but a bad dream to her.

Suddenly, without any warning, the next image appeared on the glass:

Steven.

His exact copy, standing completely still, with a friendly but vacant smile. He wasn’t, but somehow Steven felt like it was looking at _him._

His reflection spoke without moving his lips.

“I can help you, Lapis,” he said. The beginnings and ends of his words clipped unnaturally, like video clips all spliced together. The pitch went as high as a squeak and as low as a growl. “I know you’ve been scared and hurt for a long time…let me help you.”

But as “Steven” spoke, the blank scape behind him began to melt, and one by one figures began to take shape. First just three, then eight, then a dozen. Most of them were the same shape, cut from the same stencil, but in shades of yellow, blue, and gray. In their chest were diamond-shaped holes that bore right through them. Others of different colors were not of the same size: big, little, wide, thin…They had no holes in their chest, but they all had the same glassy smiles slashed across their faces.

The longer that Steven’s image stared back at him, the more a glassy smile of his own slowly appeared.

They all began to step out.

Steven reeled back when the first hand stuck right through the mirror’s surface and latched onto the silver. One by one all the shapes and shadows began to pull themselves free, clamoring on top of each other, limbs locking with limbs, a mess of color that Steven’s copy just stood there and kept smiling in. Some hit the sand in a heap and just pulled themselves back up to their feet without hesitation.

As they came closer, they began to speak.

_“Where are they?”_

_“Tell us now.”_

_“Just a piece of garbage…”_

_“Bet it’s one of them, anyway…”_

_“Tell us. Tell us.”_

_“We’ll set you free if you tell us where they are…”_

Closer and closer they came, and Steven pulled at Lapis with as much strength as his body would give. She just wouldn’t _budge._

“Steven,” sighed Star, “Just let her go. It’s okay.”

Was it? Steven couldn’t take his eyes off of the mindless things that kept crawling forward. They kept on whispering to Lapis, some sweet, some threatening. He couldn’t just leave her again, not like he’d done so many times before.

Then Star ducked out, and right when the first hand reached forward to grab Lapis, they ducked beneath his shirt and pulled him out.

He was back on Chrysocolla’s glacier. It was quiet. It was dark. Lapis stayed in her Gem, still and serene.

It wasn’t real. None of this was.

But what _was_ it? Lapis’s memories, or just her thoughts? How was Steven supposed to get her out when he didn’t even know what was happening?

He looked upwards. The back of Chrysocolla’s head was above him. He thought that maybe, if he was careful, he could make it to her forehead.

“Is Peridot dealing with something like that, too?” he asked aloud.

Star gave him a gentle nudge between his shoulders. “Only one way to find out.”

It was a harder climb this time around. It took some careful maneuvering up Chrysocolla’s hair to the very top of her head. It was hard to stomach the height when he made it up—no barrier, no railing, nothing to keep him from tumbling off. But more than the fear, he was unsettled by the sheer _nothingness_ around. It really was just miles and miles of a void.

Getting to Peridot nearly had him tumbling down, down, down below. He carefully stepped onto the top of her visor and tip-toed his way along the edge. There Peridot was, still frozen, still silent.

Steven took a breath to steady himself. He wasn’t looking forward to this. “Well. Here we go.”

“You go first this time.”

Steven tipped his head forward and broke through the surface of the Gem.

First and foremost there was Peridot. Just like Lapis before, she stayed suspended in space, completely unaffected by the world around her.

This time, though, there wasn’t just one Peridot. There was—well, he couldn’t count them.

Each Peridot—however many there were—stood in front of a great diamond-shaped desk. Each one moved the same way at the same time. Not one of them was a millisecond out of pace with any other. They were working on _something._ Their arms, floating fingers and all, moved about in front of them, but what they were accomplishing was nothing more than blurs and flashes.

None of them had faces. The skin behind their visors was blank. But they were all Peridot, not Peridots—all had their triangular green Gems in their foreheads.

He didn’t know how, but looking around the space, Steven saw that it was both endless _and_ confined. The Peridots at their desks just went on and on and _on,_ he couldn’t count how many there were if he tried. And yet, towering high above them were four walls and a ceiling. Dark and blank. Nothing.

"Well," said Star, "At least it's just Peridot...s."

Just as they said this, a sudden voice boomed out from around them: _"Satisfactory performance."_

Star zipped closer to Steven in seconds flat. "Gah!"

All the walls and the ceiling glitched into static. For a split second, they were all filled with the image of a Gem Steven had never seen. He didn't get many details from her in such a short glimpse—orange, a round Gem in the shoulder. Whoever she was, she only appeared to once again repeat, _"Satisfactory performance."_

As the Peridots worked on _whatever_ it was that they were doing, the sound kept coming over and over, like a beat for them to march to. One, two, _"Satisfactory performance."_ One, two, _"Satisfactory performance."_ It wasn't the same Gem that took up the screens every time, not even the same type, yet they all somehow managed to look the same: same stiff upper lip, narrowed eyes, a straight posture with their shoulders rolled back.

 _Are these Peridot's bosses?_ Steven wondered, _She said she had people she worked for..._

They spent maybe thirty seconds watching all the Peridots move to the same rhythm, listening to the repetitions of, "Satisfactory performance" as they sounded through the air.

Then, one Peridot—just one—did something out of place. Her arm moved out of line with all the others, and her entire desk flashed red. A low tone bleated through the air. The Peridot that made the mistake just stayed still, as if someone had grabbed her arm and pulled it tight.

This time, although a voice spoke, the walls remained covered in static.

 _"Robonoids seem to be getting compromised by something on the Earth's surface_ ," the voice droned. _"It seems doubtful the Peridot is at fault here."_

So the Peridot was released again, and seamlessly joined the others in their dance. The rhythm was back. Strangers' faces came and remarked on a satisfactory performance as each and every copy of Peridot did the exact same thing as the one next to it.

Star did a slow turn around Steven's body. _"Is this what Peridots do on Homeworld?"_

Steven worried at his cheek. "I guess so?"

Another warning tone, another flash of red. A Peridot perhaps a dozen desks away froze still. The walls went to static.

_"Effort to retrieve needed information from Prime Kindergarten Control Room Facet Five has been compromised. Unclear if assigned Peridot is at fault. Currently under review."_

This time, the Peridot was _not_ released. She stayed stuck and trapped as all the others kept on going.

And then, all at once, each Peridot stopped what they were doing to stand pin-straight. They all did the peculiar salute that Steven saw Jasper do in the Beta Kindergarten on her call with Blue Diamond: crossing their forearms one over the other, then bending their fingers back until the space between them formed a diamond shape. The voices remarking of _"satisfactory performances"_ stopped.

A green light filled the space—given, it was already rather green before, but now Steven himself was a bright lime color, and even Star's inky blackness had a peculiar emerald undertone.

The voice that spoke next was smooth and deep, but somehow it was sharper than the others. Like the speaker was standing in the room with them, but couldn't be seen. They sounded resigned, exhausted. _"Let's just send the Peridot with them. Let her finish the job."_

Steven recognized the next voice. It sent a chill right through his bones.

 _"Let's send the Jasper, the flawless one,"_ said Blue Diamond. _"She knows the Earth well and she'll keep the Peridot and the prisoner in line."_

Just like that, the Peridots went back to work. But it wasn't hard to see that something was off this time. Their movements were no longer flawlessly in unison. They were just _slightly_ out of sync with each other. It was such a small change, yet now Steven felt chaos in the air. The Peridots didn't seem like copies anymore. They all seemed real, and they all seemed afraid.

Another Peridot froze and went red. And once again Steven recognized the voice that spoke, and this time the familiar face accompanied it on the walls.

" _This_ is what's causing you so much trouble?" It was like watching an old home video, the way the memory jolted in Steven's mind. He remembered Jasper saying just that when she and Peridot had arrived on the hand-shaped ship. She'd said it in that exact tone with that exact cadence. But the next thing she said didn't sound like Jasper at all. "This will be going on the report."

A second Peridot taken and trapped. A third soon followed.

The image this time was fast, and something _moved_ —Steven couldn't help but jump, even though he recognized Pearl's face even as it was twisted with fury and lunging forward.

The image cut off with a sharp cracking sound, like glass. It was not Pearl that spoke, just an inhuman growl:

"Technology was damaged under your care. This will be going on the report."

Pearl left. Another Peridot froze. Above their heads, Amethyst cackled with a gruesome grin as she held all the glasses for Peridot's tractor beam in her arms.

_"Technology was stolen from under your supervision. This will be going on the report."_

After that...it just got so, so much worse.

Peridots started freezing three, four, five at a time. The flashing of red stabbed into Steven's eyeballs, the warning tones roaring. Now the monotone voice that sounded off had reached such a low pitch that it reverberated through his bones. All the while, the real Peridot stayed where she was, and the walls looming above kept flashing brief but harrowing images.

_"The ship granted to your use for this operation has been destroyed. This will be taken to the Diamonds."_

_"The destruction of the ship under your use resulted in the shattering of Homeworld Gems. You will be put under arrest immediately."_

_"You fused with a Gem not of your own type. You will be taken to the Diamonds immediately."_

_"You conspired with a prisoner of Homeworld to cover your negligence on your mission. Your shattering will be arranged."_

_"By conspiring with the enemies of Homeworld for your own personal gain, you have committed treason. You will be shattered immediately."_

Now there were no moving Peridots left. The warning tone carried on, the wailing of a siren. The walls did not change their pictures anymore: hundreds of furious eyes filled the screen and stayed there, glaring down at the real Peridot. Waiting for her to just... _die_.

A Peridot nearby suddenly disappeared. The ground beneath her just blinked away, and she went falling into nothing. Steven and Star both jumped back. Then went another Peridot, then another—the ground became a patchwork of voids, and the siren just kept wailing.

Steven didn't want to stick around this time. He pulled his head back out into the...Well, not "real" world, but the real-er world. He hadn't appreciated how quiet it was out there; just the sounds of Chrysocolla's tears falling.

He sat down on the edge of Chrysocolla's visor. He had no idea what to even think; every time an idea almost came to his head, it evaporated just as quickly, a whirlwind not taking form just yet.

"So...memories?" Star pulled up in front of him. The drop down didn't seem to bother them at all this time. "Not memories?"

"I have no idea. I think... _some_ of them are memories?" Steven scratched at his hair. The _scritch-scritch_ was oddly loud. "I think it's almost like they're having bad dreams."

Star made a sort of scoffing sound. "I've been with you for bad dreams before, Steven. Those things were different."

"No, I mean..." Oh, boy. How do you even explain dreams to someone who had never heard about them? "A lot of the times, dreams are just random, but sometimes they come from your subconscious? It's like that time when I was out in Beach City and I saw a guy just throw his hot dog wrapper on the ground, and I picked it up for him and I just thought, 'Man, I wish people wouldn't litter!' Then I went to Citywalk Fries to get some fry bits and ketchup. Then I had a dream that night that that guy broke into my house to steal all of our ketchup. He was also riding a platypus with wings, and I have no idea where that came from, but you get my point?"

"No," answered Star. "But sure!"

Steven turned to look back at Peridot. "I think that's just a whole bunch of stuff. Their memories, the things they're afraid of..."

His incorporeal friend paused in thought. They could pause as long as they needed to; Steven himself had no idea how he was managing to process all of this. "But...Why are they dealing with their own stuff? Weren't they just Chrysocolla last time?"

"Not really. Lapis and Peridot were fighting each other for control... _Then_ Chrysocolla came."

"Okay, so just so we're clear: there's Lapis and then there's Peridot, and Lapis and Peridot are Chrysocolla, but Chrysocolla isn't Lapis and Peridot."

"That's a fair assessment of how fusion works, yeah."

"Oooookay, so..." Star turned left and right. "Where's Chrysocolla?"

A very good question. Steven looked down at the glacier made in her image. He really didn't think this was Chrysocolla. Nothing more than a symbol of her.

Steven actually wished that there was a little _more_ noise in this space. For some reason, the silence was even more distracting. The splashing of Chrysocolla's tears was _too_ much of a white noise.

Speaking of...

He leaned forward just enough to see down to the pool. All he could see of himself was squiggles of blue and pink. If this was only what the surface looked like, he couldn't imagine what was beneath. _Was_ there a 'beneath'?

"I think I have an idea," Steven said. He pulled himself up to his feet, _far_ too aware of the drop between himself and the pool. It was just far enough for his stomach to roil with anxiety. "I just hope there are no consequences."

Star had already caught on, and gave a curious glance down below. "Well...Worst case scenario, you wake up."

"Right...That's how dreams work." He sucked in air in deep, smooth breaths. Some of the tension sapped away from his body. "Um. See you down there?"

He took one last steadying breath, kept it in, and tilted his body back to drop.

Star said, "Wait, I—"

But Steven's body had already committed to the action, and he was falling.

The good thing was that it was over soon. The bad thing was that it wasn't over soon enough. His legs flailed out of his control, wind rushed past his ears. He couldn't watch the water come rushing up to him, so halfway through he squeezed his eyes shut...which didn't help much.

 _To be fair,_ Steven thought himself in the one-and-a-half-second it was taking him to land, _I have fallen off of a cliff and survived, so I don't know why I'm scared of the same thing but not-real._

He was bracing himself for the cold splash, but it didn't come. There was only a brief breeze that gusted by him. Instead of kicking and swimming through mirror-water, Steven landed right on his face. On...sand?

Before he could properly get a hold of his bearings, or even look to see where he was, Star's voice came to his ear and tutted, "I was going to just float you down."

"That's nice of you to offer," Steven muffled. He had to lift up his head and spit out a volleyball court's worth of sand. He'd had enough sand for the day, real or otherwise.

More of it clung to his shirt and jeans, which was juuuuust _greeeeat_ , but some batting and swiping got the job done. As for where he was...Well, Steven was immensely grateful to say that there was nothing upsetting, unsettling, or outright bone-chilling about his surroundings.

At first, all he could make out was darkness. Above his head was a crooked, rippling circle: the pool of Chrysocolla's tears. It reminded him of how Sapphire's pond looked from Ruby's Room. What struck him as peculiar, though, was that as he looked around his inky surroundings, he came to the conclusion that he was back in the ocean. Deep, _deep_ into the ocean.

That wasn't shocking, of course. After all, hadn't Chrysocolla's surroundings been nothing but for all this time? Yet, Steven had been so sure that being trapped at the bottom of the sea, with not the slimmest ray of sunshine to let you see, would be terrifying. This darkness did not scare him.

Something came forward from the depths, and even that didn't scare Steven. Especially when he saw what it was.

The squid was about as large as the length of his arm. Its tentacles calmly furled around it, pushing it ever-so-gently through the water. Its whole body was covered in glowing speckles that shimmered with each movement—its whole body looked like a small, contained galaxy. Even its large, glowing eyes did not unsettle Steven.

If only because he knew it was real and would not hurt him, Steven reached out a hand. The squid just briefly wrapped its tentacles around it, its suckers only tickling his skin. Then it went ahead as if it was just shaking his hand and bidding him a good day.

Star pulled up close to him, whispering, "What was that?"

"A squid," Steven chuckled. Not at Star's naivete—he was just as amazed as they were.

Then Star exclaimed, "What's _that_?"

Jellyfish—one, two, eight, a dozen—came fluttering forward. None of them were the same color, none of them even _stayed_ the same color. The delicate lace of their bodies shifted hue with every pulse. Their edges glimmered as if they had a ring of pearls around them. Steven did not disturb them. The sight was as serene as swans on a lake.

"Those are jellyfish," he explained.

Star hummed. "Does that mean there are peanutbutterfish, too?"

He couldn't keep back a laugh. He almost felt bad for the sound disturbing the peace. "That's a good one, Star!"

"I...wasn't joking. Oh, what's that one?"

"That's a—scary, scary thing. Stepping back now."

Steven didn't know what they were called, but it was one of those fish with teeth. He didn't get them. He didn't get why snakes couldn't have arms but fish could have teeth. In any case, he made sure there was a good six feet between him and it as it drifted by. Its milky eyes hardly glanced his way. Its teeth, its gills, and the streaks that went down the length of its body all shimmered a bright scarlet that would have been gorgeous if it weren't just so _terrifying_.

They kept coming forward from the depths like dancers called to the stage. They came in every color of the rainbow, every size, every shape. They glowed and shimmered. They drifted and fluttered and danced. Some were so thin and delicate they looked like ghosts. Others were bigger than Steven was tall. Neon eels created an aurora borealis over his head. Embers of plankton gusted by. Steven almost couldn't put into words how beautiful they all were. Nor could he put into words how the ones with teeth were so—so—just—no— _no_. Stop it.

Turning around in circles, not wanting to miss any of it, Steven finally saw the host of the show: "There she is."

Chrysocolla sat with her elbows on her knees and her head tilted down. Whereas her components had had their eyes shut and their faces calm and unmoving, Chrysocolla was looking up at the technicolor life. The lights flashed across her visor, and behind it her eyes were wide with wonder. She only moved to turn her head left and right just so.

This was Chrysocolla. Not Lapis, not Peridot, and not just a summation of all their fears and memories. She was new, and even though she lived in lonely darkness and her two halves were in constant war with one another, this strange new world she sat it was still beautiful.

"This isn't bad," said Star. They laughed. "If the neverending void I was occupying was anything like this, I wouldn't have minded it nearly so much! Ha, ha, ha..." Catching Steven's eye, they murmured, "That was depressing, I'm sorry."

It was such a wondrous sight. Steven could stand here and watch it all for hours. But...

"I don't get it," he thought aloud, grabbing Star's attention. "Is this was being Chrysocolla is like _for_ Chrysocolla? What's scaring her so bad that she wants to leave?"

* * *

In the real world, Steven didn't say a thing. His mouth didn't even so much as twitch. He was in a sleep so deep it seemed impossible to get him out of it.

Looking down at him, all three Crystal Gems were frowning with worry. They still didn't have even have the slightest idea of what this "Star" person was or could be—and in all honesty, they had reeled in a good bit of panic when they found out about them, not wanting to freak Steven or make him more stressed than he already was. Not to mention, their encounter with a certain Lapis Lazuli had made them wary of how they approached... _situations_ like these.

Ruby murmured, "Maybe it's a Rose thing?"

Opal shook her head. "Rose never had to deal with something like this. I would have known about it."

"Maybe it's a Steven thing, then," sighed Sapphire. She gave Steven a little pat atop his head, but he didn't so much as flutter his eyelashes. "It could be nothing at all."

Ruby's nose crinkled up into a knot. "How could it be nothing? The thing makes him pass out!"

"What I mean is maybe it's like his subconscious." The blue Gem paused and tapped her chin. "Though I don't know much about the human mind regardless."

"I think I get what you're saying," mumbled Opal. Her eyes were narrowed in on Steven's sleeping face. "Steven is half-Gem and half-human. Humans can have certain responses to stress, like fainting. Combine that with all the powers of a Gem, and maybe Star is just how he responds to stressful situations. Maybe he just sees it as a person because that's what his mind tells him to think."

Ruby still frowned. She gave Steven's cheek a little poke, which got his hand quickly pushed away by Opal. "If it's just a stress response, then he shouldn't be able to _ask_ it to help him."

"Well, I don't know, maybe it's like blinking and you can do it voluntarily _and_ involuntarily." Opal's head tilted to the side. "Or maybe it's like how he can move his ears if he tries really hard."

"I don't like it when he does that," whispered Sapphire. "It scares me."

Ruby added, " _Ears_ scare me."

Behind them, Jasper's voice tutted, "Anyone care to explain what's going on to me now?"

Opal shushed her, Ruby batted her hand in her direction, and Sapphire did nothing at all.

"Just making sure."

Ruby finally took her eyes off of Steven, but not to look at Jasper. Chrysocolla looked to be just as asleep as Steven was. Her head had fallen back against the wall, and even though her knees were still pulled up to her chest, it looked as though one push would push her legs over.

“If it’s just a stress thing, wouldn’t he have been passing out over and over for days now?” She jerks one shoulder in a shrug. “I mean, I can’t remember the last time he _wasn’t_ stressed.”

“He might be.” It was Sapphire that said it, but she didn’t mean to be heard. She stiffened when Opal and Ruby both turned to her, and only explained reluctantly. “He might just be keeping it to himself.”

Opal nodded, and Ruby said nothing. It seemed more and more often like this whole situation was a bad bruise. Right when they were about to forget, it crept back up on them and stung. All three of them wanted to say something, but even if he was as deep under as he could be, Steven was still right there between them.

Jasper’s voice carried up again. “I wouldn’t blame him.”

Ruby barked back, “Can it!”

Then came a sound so loud and sudden that all three of them (veterans of a war that had lasted for decades upon decades) jumped. To Opal and Ruby, it sounded like the strangest, tinkling jingle they’d ever heard that neither could find the source of. Only Sapphire (who was a veteran in more ways than one) recognized it as the theme song of _Crying Breakfast Friends._

They all realized at the exact same time that A) it was coming from Steven’s phone on the nightstand, and B) it was almost _certainly_ loud enough to wake both Steven and their tumultuous guest. Sapphire was closest to it, and reached out for it so quickly that her palm sent it flying. Ruby jumped up to catch it, and she _did,_ at the cost of her balance: she went falling over the edge of the loft.

Opal and Sapphire scrambled over just in time to see Ruby hit the sofa square on her back. _Somehow,_ by sheer, unpredictable physics, the phone went flying through the air. _Still_ blasting the same cheery theme song. Except now it was closer to Chrysocolla, and it somehow seemed _louder._

“Jasper,” Opal hissed as loudly as she dared, “Catch it!”

So _apparently—_ unbeknownst to any of them—Jasper’s instincts had been hardened and refined from many years of being a war veteran herself, and were now a force to be reckoned with. For just one split second, she didn’t really forget who it was ordering her so much as why they would so such a thing, and her mind never even slightly wondered why Steven’s cellphone was flying through the air. All she saw was a moving object, the words, “Catch it,” and that was it.

Her measuring tape went clattering down onto the floor. She _dove_ forward, arms and legs outstretched, her body parallel to the floor as she went flying through the air. Her giant orange hand clamped down around the phone, almost silencing it.

Approximately 1.42 seconds later, her body hit the floorboards and crashed straight through.

Of _course,_ this was just enough ruckus to properly startle Chrysocolla awake.

* * *

In one second, every last glimmering light went dark. Chrysocolla disappeared. The sand beneath his feet blinked away.

A strangled yell ripped through Steven’s throat as his body was sucked back up through the air. Star was not far behind with a yell of their own.

They went falling through the pool and went flailing ten feet through the air before crashing down on the ice again. The world spun around Steven. His feet went falling over his head, and he scrambled back up to his feet.

The glacier of Chrysocolla had just—been _that._ A glacier. He’d even seen parts where the ice was transparent, he could still see Peridot from where he stood.

But _now…_ Now the glacier was falling to pieces, and like a broken shell, the real Chrysocolla was inside. First the aqua color of her arm, then her eye, wide and spinning behind her visor. The cracks and splinters were almost deafening. And soon, Peridot disappeared.

Shockwaves went rattling up his legs. He heard a deep, echoing sound like power lines snapping. The crystalline boulders fell from Chrysocolla went crashing below, shattering the ice and sending the dark water splashing high into the air.

Steven lurched so suddenly that he almost lost his footing. Star flew over to him so quickly they bumped into his side. The ice beneath his feet was already splintering. Jagged silver lines were going in every direction, and only growing with every passing second. One stabbed right between his feet, and the ice shifted apart.

Steven threw himself to one side. He was left on a floating island just large enough for him to stand on. He jumped to another one, bigger, but then it, too, was broken in half.

“What’s happening?” barked Star. “Because I don’t know!”

“If you don’t know, then I extra don’t know!”

Chrysocolla had emerged at last. The shapes of her water wings suddenly crumbled into dust, and their true forms were left behind. Except now they were made not of clear ocean water, but the reflective, mercurial water that still spilled forth from Chrysocolla’s eyes.

Two of which were now trained on Steven.

“Wh…wh…!” Chrysocolla was already melting, worse that Steven had ever seen her before. Now she was actually falling apart—drops of her flesh went splashing into the water. Her eyes weren't even in sync anymore. Her pupils were darting in every other direction. "Why are you here? Why are you here _again_? What do you want?!"

"I—I—I—" Steven's mouth fumbled with his words while his feet fumbled on the breaking ice. He kept reminding himself that he couldn't get hurt here, but it was so easy to forget...And if this went wrong, then would Chrysocolla ever let him try and help her like this again? "I'm just...I thought that if I talked to you like this again, maybe I could help you."

"I didn't—I didn't tell you to do this...!" Chrysocolla's watery wings were tempests on her back. Steven could almost feel the spray on his face. "I didn't want to see you in here again!"

"Okay, I'm sorry." As his feet went drifting in different directions, Steven once again scrambled to find his balance. "I should have asked you if this was okay before I tried this. I just thought that maybe...if there was something out there that maybe you didn't want to say in front of the others, then you could just say it to me!"

Chrysocolla's spinning eyes pinned on Star. "Then who's _that_?!"

"I'm not real." Star ducked behind Steven's body. "I'm not real at all. Ignore me!"

"So..." Steven swallowed. "Is there something you want to say?"

Chrysocolla gritted her teeth. Then Lapis grabbed at her hair. Then Peridot let out a thunderous groan. Steven couldn't even keep track of how quickly they were changing. They were flickering in and out faster than the speed of light. He almost couldn't see them. Was this good? Was this bad?

"No...don't want to...say anything," said Chrysocolla, but it sounded as if every other syllable came from Lapis or Peridot's voice. "Just...just drop it...just drop it..."

"O-okay. I get that you don't— _want_ to say anything, but maybe you need to?" Chrysocolla's glare could have pushed him back into the water. Speaking of which, he very nearly went splashing in before he caught himself again. "What I mean is, um...I know that I'm not totally one-hundred-percent Gem like you, and I'm not a fusion."

Chrysocolla—Lapis—Peridot—Chrysocolla sneered at him while her skin continued to melt away, but she didn't interrupt.

"But I _am_ alive, and I know that sometimes...Sometimes there are things that you really don't want to say because you feel bad for even _thinking_ them. And sometimes you wished you could stop feeling things because you feel bad for _feeling_ them. I-I get that."

"No, you don't," Chrysocolla snarled. The water began to roil. "How on earth _could_ you? You're not me! There's no one like me! _No one_ gets it!"

"I know, I know, I know! I know that I don't get what you feel. I'm sorry that I don't, I'm sorry I can't help. But what I mean is..."

The water slapped at the sides of his island, sending him swaying. He had to keep his footing. Something told him that if he collapsed into the water, he was going to wake up. While Chrysocolla kept glowering down at him—and still her eyes changed from aqua to blue to green—he kept an eye open for the familiar pearly portal that would take him back to the real world.

He had to say something and fast. He just knew that it had to be true, too, because in her current state, Chrysocolla's lie detector had to be flawless.

This was just between the two of them—there was no one else around, that was the point of being here to begin with. So as real as this all felt, the Crystal Gems were nowhere around and couldn't possibly hear him.

So he spoke:

"Um...I-I found out a while ago that...that the others were lying to me."

The water stilled, but so did Chrysocolla's glare on him. She _stayed_ Chrysocolla. Only the briefest images of Peridot and Lapis came, like his eyelids blinking out his vision.

"Yeah. It was...It was bad. I found out that about the Diamonds. You know the Diamonds." She didn't answer. "'Course you do. Um—I found out about the Diamonds, and part of why Homeworld hates the Earth so much. I found out about Pink Diamond and what my mom just... _kind_ of did to her?"

Steven swallowed more air.

"It really hurt, because...I thought that they trusted me, you know? We've done a lot together, we're on a team. More than that, w-we're a family. I mean, you were there on the beach. I came back for them. I helped them! I broke them out of space-prison and I helped them take down the ship before it—"

Chrysocolla turned into Peridot. She looked very unamused.

"Sorry, sore subject. And I know that _you_ don't like what kind of team we are, I get that, but this isn't about..." Ugh. He kept forgetting that all of this was so far beyond a simple family dispute. He couldn’t start talking to them about how the Crystal Gems were the good guys and the Diamonds were the good guys, yada, yada. Chrysocolla would snap in one instant. “What I mean is…I felt really betrayed when I found out they still don’t trust me.”

Against his will, his voice went softer. Chrysocolla kept watching.

“I used to get really worried that I was just a bother to them. I didn’t feel like a Crystal Gem, I just felt like an annoying kid they had to deal with. They kept promising that I was going to do something great one day, but I didn’t want to _wait_ for one day, so I kept looking for every opportunity to prove myself. For a long time, I thought that I _did_ , and finding out that I was wrong…” Steven ran his hands down his face. “I knew I was right to be angry, but I still felt bad about it! I just had so many confusing feelings, you know? I wanted to be angry, but I didn’t _like_ being angry, I wanted to talk about it, but I was worried that if I did then I was just being a pushover…! And all this time, I wouldn’t even let myself talk about it, because even when I just _thought_ about all of this, I’d feel stupid and childish.”

His island began to sway again, but raising his eyes again—not recalling when he’d dropped them in the first place—he saw that it was not Chrysocolla falling apart, but her leaning forward towards him. Her stomach and arms sank deeper into the water as she sank closer and closer, until finally her face was right above him. Every part of her face was pulled tight.

She was listening. Behind him, Star prodded his back. _Go on._

“I’m still really upset. I’m still having a lot of confusing thoughts.” He sighed, almost mumbling, “Every time I think I’m ready to talk to them about it, I get upset again. I’ve gotten so tired of feeling like this all the time…I wish none of this had ever happened…But…”

Steven took a deep breath—not to steady himself, but because his lungs suddenly felt larger. His shoulders didn’t ache so much. The bitter taste in his mouth had lightened.

Meeting Chrysocolla’s gaze (or rather, due to their size difference, looking at her at one eye or the other), he told her, “I feel better because I said it. I was worried about sounding dumb, but I feel better now.”

He tilted his head. She wasn’t interrupting him once. She would’ve said something if he was wrong.

“I’m not here to judge you or figure out your secrets, Chrysocolla.” He took one step forward. She didn’t pull back. “Maybe I’m wrong…But what if it _does_ help to just talk about it? I feel better after saying what I just did, but for you, maybe it’ll help you unfuse. Would it really hurt to try it?”

Chrysocolla’s eyelids blinked slowly. She let out a breathe, and the cold breeze rustled at Steven’s clothes. Star peeked over his shoulder.

For a minute, she seemed frozen again—another glacier, just without the ice. Then Steven saw a slight glimmer on her cheek, and then the other. Tears were leaking from her eyes again, _real_ tears, not the reflective liquid that spilled from them before.

Steven heard the hissing sound of melting ice, and looked down at his feet. His little icecap was melting away. Yet, just as it disappeared beneath him, his feet were standing on sand. The water that lapped at his legs was clear, tinted emerald—he could almost smell the salt.

There was no frozen tundra, no darkness. They stood on a beach. The foamy water rushed and receded around his calves. A sun blazed hot overhead. Instead of never-ending darkness, Steven saw a glimmering ocean that went on forever. Chrysocolla had finally stopped melting.

“I…I…” She kept saying it over and over. Peridot said it, Lapis said it. “I…I don’t want…”

She still had her eyes on him, and finally, Steven turned around. All he could see was the rush of saltwater between his legs lapping up at the shore. Chrysocolla didn’t want to tell _him._

“I…I don’t want…I don’t want to go back…” Chrysocolla hiccupped. “I don’t want to go back to being _me…_ I don’t want to go back to hurting all the time…”

Lapis feared going back to a world where she was used and tossed aside time and time again. Peridot feared going back to a world where any mistake could be her end. They were insulted, lied to, torn down time and time again. Even if they were imprisoned and had no one to keep them company but themselves, Chrysocolla could just be…well, Chrysocolla. She just sat at the bottom of the ocean, alive but not living. Nothing could hurt her but herself.

Steven sucked in a shaky breath. His heart was breaking inside of his chest, and he had to tell himself over and over to keep it together. She couldn’t stay like this. She didn’t have to choose between two different pains.

“I think...” Steven’s voice was dry. He coughed. “I think that you’re hurting now, Chrysocolla. You don’t want to leave, but you don’t want to stay, either.”

Chrysocolla sucked in more air. The tears kept flowing. “Then what do I do? Where…where do I go…?”

It was a good question. It’s not as if either Lapis or Peridot even _remotely_ liked the Earth, Lapis was Homeworld’s prisoner, and even if Peridot _could_ get back to Homeworld, would she even want to? Steven couldn’t think of a place in this galaxy where either one of them would be happy.

“You’re not going _anywhere_ like this. You’re stuck.”

Steven sloshed closer to her. For one disorienting minute, it felt like the closer he came, the farther away she was. She was shrinking from her colossal height to her normal self, standing in the water with him. Her watery arms spilled right into the ocean water, but her other hands were worrying in front of her lap. With her head bent to watch him approach and sniffling so quietly, she looked almost like a lost child.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen if you guys unfuse. I don’t know where you’re going to go. You’re going to have to find out for yourselves, and you can’t do that if you keep hiding. Do you want to try and find a way to be happier, or do you just want to keep hiding no matter how hurt you are?”

Chrysocolla, then Lapis, then Peridot, then Chrysocolla, over and over, pictures on a slide. Chrysocolla looked down at her hands. Lapis and Peridot looked at each other. Chrysocolla’s fingers curled in. Lapis and Peridot looked down at their joined hands.

Chrysocolla twined her fingers together. Lapis and Peridot drew their hands apart

* * *

The inside of Steven’s Room was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Steven’s phone, still held in Jasper’s grasp, had stopped ringing. No one so much as whispered. All eyes were on Chrysocolla. She stood on her feet, almost filling the room, her wings unfurled and splashing.

Everyone had held their breaths before.

Not now.

It had been quite a while now.

Ruby leaned over to Sapphire and whispered from the corner of her mouth, “Okay, now this is just freaking me out.”

Sapphire hummed her agreement.

The sound of Jasper crashing through the floor had startled Chrysocolla awake. She’d jumped to her feet immediately, hands clenched into fists, and they all braced themselves for attack. Opal and Ruby had jumped down first, Sapphire had stayed with Steven in case she needed to grab him and run. All three of them had been so worried for those first few seconds—if not that this battle was going to be right in the middle of Steven’s Room, then that Chrysocolla may have returned to her initial plan of leveling Beach City to the ground.

In the end…Chrysocolla just stood there. She didn’t make a sound. She wasn’t even glaring down at them—her face was utterly emotionless. Her eyes were glazed over.

So the three Crystal Gems and Jasper (who held onto the floorboards she’d wrecked, figuring she might as well replace them herself) were just staring up at what was basically a statue.

Jasper was the first to call out, “Hey!”

Not even so much as a blink. Ruby looked close to shivering.

Opal tiptoed over as silently as she could. First she just waved her hands in front of Chrysocolla’s face, and when that didn’t accomplish anything, she lifted up the visor in front of her eyes. Even _that_ didn’t get a reaction. And neither did poking her eyeball.

Ruby took a small step behind Sapphire. This was becoming too eerie for her tastes. “Maybe she’s sleepwalking?”

“Hold on,” said Jasper. She set the floorboards down on the floor, considering them all, and picked up the sharpest piece. “She’s distracted.”

“No, no, no!” Opal held all four arms out at her sides to shield Chrysocolla from the jagged piece of wood Jasper brandished. No matter how wide she spread her limbs out, Chrysocolla still towered over her by several feet. “We’re going to wait until Steven wakes up. Who knows? Maybe she’s just like this because—”

With a great blast of aquamarine dust, Opal was sent flying.

She bowled right into Sapphire and Ruby (“Not again!” was the last thing the red Gem could exclaim before Opal’s hair imprisoned her once more) and all three of them landed in a heap at Jasper’s feet. She still brandished her makeshift weapon, but now summoned her crash helmet as well. As the sparkling dust filled the room, she was making up strategies in milliseconds—which way would be fastest to get to Steven, how she was going to get the fusion out in the open…

The smoke settled. Chrysocolla was gone.

Lapis stumbled on her feet. She was exhausted. It looked like a fight just to keep her legs straight. She teetered left and right, once almost crashing to the floor before she caught herself. She tried to summon her wings, but her Gem only flickered.

It seemed forever until the room stopped spinning around her. The giant lump of color straight ahead finally cleared.

 _Now_ the Crystal Gems were back to holding their breaths. Lapis looked between all of them in turn. It seemed as though she _wanted_ to summon up the outrage—it certainly sparked when her eyes fell on Jasper—but she was still in shock. The fact that she was here, _just Lapis Lazuli,_ was physically disorienting.

While everyone lied in wait, Sapphire took the opportunity to pluck the wood from Jasper’s grip.

A quiet, sleepy groan from up in the loft took Lapis’ attention away. Steven was stirring under the blankets. He was so deeply asleep that waking up was a fight. Lapis made her first sound: a shaky breath that soon caught in her throat.

Then, looking behind her, she caught sight of the green body sprawled across the floor. She wasn’t even twitching. The Crystal Gems and Jasper were ahead, Steven to the side, and Peridot was behind her.

For just one moment, Lapis took a step in Peridot’s direction—then a step backwards, bringing her closer to the others. Not one of them had dared to move an inch, yet she looked as though she was being closed in. She was frightened.

She didn’t do it easily—her teeth gritted together, and her eyes squeezed tight as if she was trying _so_ hard not to let out a deafening scream of frustration—but finally Lapis dove for the hole in the floor.

In the span of a second, they all heard three sounds: the chiming sound of her Gem coming to life, the gust of wind as she flew from the Temple, and the distant flapping of her wings as she flew far, far, and farther away.

Still inside, they didn’t see Lapis Lazuli’s form fading into the night sky. The only person who saw this was Connie Maheswaran, who had just come to the bottom of the stairs leading up to Steven’s Room. When Lapis flew right by her, Connie went still, confused out of her mind. That was Lapis. _The_ Lapis, the one who had almost drowned them all in the ocean, the one that was fused with “Peridot” at the bottom of the ocean. And she just came out of Steven’s Room?

She still hadn’t processed what she’d just seen when she started bounding up the steps two at a time. It was a very peculiar scene that she opened the screen door to. There was a great hole in the floor…which, okay, that wasn’t too weird for this house. But Opal, Sapphire, Ruby, and Jasper all stood together in a knot with the same baffled expressions. Across the room, someone Connie had never seen before, someone with pale yellow hair in the shape of a pyramid and skin the color of limes, was unconscious on the floor.

Finally Steven appeared. Everyone broke out of their stupor to jump when he very nearly went to the floor coming down the stairs so fast. He looked no better than Lapis had. He was practically sleeping on his feet.

“Lap…Lapis…!” Steven tried to steady himself on the wall, but it was no good. “Lapis…? Per…Chrys’colla?”

Connie had been so prepared to rush into the Room to talk about _everything._ Now Steven was in no shape to say what his own name was. She was the first to make it over to him, quickly followed by Ruby. The Gem tugged him over to the sofa, while Connie helplessly followed, trying to be as calm an image as his droopy eyes could see.

“Just take it easy, Steven,” she told him. “It’s okay. Everything’s—fine.”

Steven hit the sofa heavily. Sapphire floated over to join Ruby in fretting over him. Opal walked past, and Connie was so confused now that it was _Jasper_ who she turned to to ask, “What _happened?!”_

She was no less frazzled as Connie, but she still lifted up her giant hands and coolly answered, “I’ve been asking for eternity. It’s no use.”

Opal called for her across the room. While Steven babbled and groaned on the sofa, not quite asleep, Opal was kneeling over the green stranger. She gathered her up into her arms (an easy task for her) and told Connie in a very cool, orderly voice, “I’ll tell you everything. Let Steven be for now. He’s had a rough night.”

Well, Connie could tell that much. Steven let out another slurred, “Chrysocolla…?” that Sapphire hushed.

Connie sat her bag on the floor with a huff. She tried not to be too prideful, tried not to be a know-it-all, but she thought it was acceptable to say that she was a smart girl. Not knowing Steven’s phone number was fine—he’d punched it in himself, and she’d always used his contact ID to talk. It was just a string of numbers, no big deal.

She had to admit, though, that forgetting to tell Steven that she’d changed her phone number, wondering for days and days why he hadn’t called in so long, _realizing_ that she’d never told him her new number, only recalling much later that she could have messages from her old phone number sent to her new one, and—after seeing the absolutely _mind-numbing_ messages she’d missed—coming all the way to the Temple and only just now realizing that she’d had Steven’s number for so long and could have contacted him before now…

Yeah, Connie wasn’t too proud at the moment.


	4. The Remaining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Lapis gone, Steven and the others are left to deal with their remaining house guest, who's not exactly in...tip-top shape.

Steven expected to wake up—he _always_ did when the pearly light came. The last that he saw in the "dream" was the emerald ocean water glowing with the same pearly light that all his other dreams with Star ended with. It bubbled up and overcame him, but it was as soothing as being lulled to sleep.

He thought he'd be looking up at the ceiling above his bed, but instead he only saw moving shadows and shifting light. He was so disoriented; he couldn't even form a coherent thought. He knew that he was trying to find Chrysocolla, or Peridot and Lapis, but at the time he couldn't even remember what they looked like. Did he call for them? Did they answer?

It seemed like hours that he was just stumbling around in a haze, until finally his senses came together. He was looking up at the ceiling, just not _his_ ceiling, not the one above his bed. Turning his head just so, he saw the coffee table, a large hole in the floor... _again_...and behind the kitchen island, Ruby fiddling with a box of Apple-O's. It was morning. Clear, pale sunlight was stretching along the wood.

Steven pushed himself up to a sitting position, unable to stop from groaning. He finally managed to slur out, "Chrysocolla?"

"Steven!"

His immediate thought was, _Why does Chrysocolla sound like Connie?_ His second thought was, _Oh, it is Connie._ His third thought was, _IT'S CONNIE!_

Before he could even turn to look at her, she'd pulled him into a hug. Steven hugged back, of course, still wondering what she was doing here.

"I'm so sorry I wasn't talking to you," Connie fretted. "I got a new phone number and I didn't remember _your_ number to tell you and then I remembered I could have my old messages sent to me, and I saw what you sent, and I just—Okay. I'm here now. And you don't have to worry about explaining everything that's happened since the party. Opal did."

Right on cue, the fusion's hand popped up over him from his loft. Her white hair dangled down in a thick curtain. "Hey, trooper. You feeling okay?"

He blinked owlishly at her. Obviously a lot had happened since he went under...

Realizing what all Connie had just said, though, he couldn't stop himself from repeating, "Everything?"

Connie finally pulled back, frowning. Her long dark hair was a tousled mess, and she still blinked rather slowly, but she didn't seem nearly as exhausted as him. He only just then saw that she was wearing a very oversized shirt that went all the way down to her calves, like a dress—one of Greg's old shirts they had in storage? "Well...Mostly everything. She said that there was probably some stuff I'd want _you_ to tell me."

In a bittersweet way, Steven is relieved and rather impressed that Opal did not try to sweep it under the rug when company arrived. It would have been very easy to say that they "just had a little fight, that's all." And no, she apparently hadn't said anything along the lines of, "Steven found out that we've been lying to him this whole time and now he's rightfully angry," but she'd left him to speak for himself.

Steven looked back up, but Opal had already disappeared.

He swung his legs over the edge of the sofa, accidentally pulling down the blanket that had been put over him. Looking over, he saw that there was another blanket folded up on the other side of the sofa, alongside a pillow still rumpled from sleep.

"You stayed the night?" he asked Connie.

"Yeah. Don't worry. Mom was pretty upset but I told her you were going through some family junk." A little lower, she added, "I told her your pet turtle died and you needed some support."

Part of Steven feels bad for taking part in a lie, as he always does. Another part doesn't worry too much about it, since he _is_ going through family junk anyway. Another part is grieving for his nonexistent pet turtle.

So Connie was here, and understood everything that had happened. She'd spent the night, and it was now morning, and—

"Chrysocolla! Where's Chrysocolla?"

Ruby abruptly pulled up the box of Apple-O's that she was pouring, sending red and green loops across the kitchen island. "Oh, man, I knew there was something I forgot to do before breakfast."

Steven scrambled up to his feet, but he had no idea where he was going. All he knew was that Chrysocolla was no longer here. He kept turning left and right like he just missed her. For how big she was, he would have noticed her sooner.

"Where is she?" he asked again. "Did she unfuse? Where's Lapis and Peridot?"

"Slow down, buddy. Yeah, she did." Ruby came forward to console him. Sapphire joined them, and he didn't catch where she'd floated from. Connie stood off to the side, worrying her hands. "She unfused, but..." Ruby sighed and rubbed at the back of her neck. "I'm sorry, buddy, but Lapis left."

"What?"

Sapphire explained, "As soon as Chrysocolla unfused, Lapis just took off. We don't know where she went, but she's long gone by now."

She...left?

She didn't even say goodbye.

She didn't even say _hello_.

Steven knew Ruby and Sapphire were staring at him, concerned as he blinked and gaped, but...he just didn't know what to say.

This whole time, he'd been looking forward to seeing Lapis again—he'd promised her that he'd set her free. He'd been planning to give her the biggest hug anyone ever hugged when she came back. He'd wanted to apologize over and over for how everything had gone for her, and promise her that she was going to be okay now, and that she wasn't alone and he'd help her with whatever. He wanted to tell her that she could do whatever she wanted and be no one's prisoner ever again, and he wouldn't let Homeworld hurt her anymore.

But she just left.

Steven felt like he was missing something, deprived of something. Like he'd just gotten to the end of a long, dramatic book only to find that the last few pages had been torn out.

His spoke at the same time that he thought, "Is she angry at me...?"

"Hey, no. No, no." Ruby sighed and stepped closer, and it was clear that she wanted to give him a hug, or even just a touch on the shoulder, but she held herself back. "I'm sure it has nothing to do with you. With everything she's gone through, she was probably overwhelmed."

"She doesn't like us, and she _especially_ doesn't like Jasper," added Sapphire. "We were the first things that she saw when she came back. Along with everything she's had to deal with trapped as Chrysocolla, it's understandable that she wouldn't want to stick around."

Steven nodded, understanding but far from happy. That made perfect sense...He still remembers the _nightmarish_ experience he'd had as Stevonnie in the lighthouse. If he had to deal with that for _months_ , and then, when he was finally back to normal, look up and see nothing but people who had hurt him, he'd think getting away as soon as possible was a great idea, too.

It was just so frustrating, how every time he and Lapis were together, the Crystal Gems just lurked in the background. They were the deafening music that kept the two of them from talking. Lapis had tried, but she couldn't separate him from the Crystal Gems. He still remembered her crestfallen expression when he'd refused to go with her, and the image roils his stomach with guilt, but he knew he'd do the same thing even if he got another chance.

"Do we...know where she might be?"

Ruby and Sapphire exchanged a sheepish, hesitant look.

"I mean...Listen, Steve, we were just going to let her be, y'know?" Ruby picked at her headband. "She hates us, but she also isn't too keen on Homeworld anymore, either, so..."

Head snaking back, he retorted, "She saved all of us when she fused with Peridot. Don't you want to make it up to her? Shouldn't you at least apologize for keeping her in a mirror?"

"I'd _love_ to apologize for keeping her in a mirror! But considering she—" Ruby flung her arm towards the screen door and the great ocean that laid beyond it. "—took off like a rocket when she saw us, I don't think she wants anything to do with us anymore, whether it's an apology or not."

"If you would like to seek her out, then that's fine." Sapphire actually did reach out to touch him. It was just a short pat on the shoulder—she withdrew her hand just as quickly. "We'll help you. But if Lapis doesn't want to see us again, we're not going to force it."

He had to force himself to accept it. As much as he thought that an apology was _required_ , not just _warranted_ , he knew they had a point. There may not be a way to nicely wrap this with a bow. Lapis probably wanted to put everything behind her and never think about any of it ever again.

Connie came over to stand beside him, pulling him in for a one-armed hug. She smiled as comfortingly as she could. "Maybe we can try and find her together."

That did sound good to him...But there was still another question to answer:

"What about Peridot? Where did she go?"

Ruby grimaced, and she and Sapphire both pointed up to the loft. Steven went to the stairs, followed closely by Connie.

Steven had seen so much flippin' _weird_ stuff that even though it was definitely surprising, the sight of Peridot in his bed, curled up under his comforter, not two feet away from his collection of action figures in the window, wasn't _unnerving_.

She just looked like she was sleeping. The blankets were pulled up to her chin, and though her hair alone was a bit too big for the pillows, her face was halfway snuggled into them.

Opal sat past the foot of the bed with her back propped up against the TV. With one hand propping up her chin and all the others crossed over her knees, she looked nothing short of bored. Just _yesterday_ , the name 'Peridot' alone seemed to put her on some kind of edge, but now the green Gem was dozing right in front of her and Opal looked like she'd rather be watching paint dry.

Steven tiptoed forward. He wasn't scared, because Peridot didn't have any of her tools anymore and Opal wasn't going to let him get hurt, but he had the same sense of unease as when he wound up a jack-in-the-box. Peridot was capable of being calm and composed, but when she got ruffled, she was loud, volatile, and unpredictable. She _had_ tried to crush him after he just mildly annoyed her in the Kindergarten.

When Steven poked her cheek, nothing happened. When he tapped her on the visor, she remained motionless. It was giving him very uncomfortable memories of last night's "dream."

"What's wrong with her?" he asked Opal.

"Well." Opal rolled her shoulders back. "I'm going to guess that Peridot has never fused before, since a Peridot's job wouldn't require them to do so. She also definitely never fused with a different type of Gem before, which you already know is quite an experience. Throw all that on top of the _everything_ that she went through, I'd be more surprised if she _hadn't_ clocked out."

Steven gave Peridot one more shake as a last-ditch effort. She didn't even snort. _Finally_ , looking back at Opal, he was unnerved by the scene in front of him. Just not for the reason he thought he'd be.

"You're not going to Bubble her while she's out?"

Opal's jaw visibly worked. She kept her eyes trained on Peridot with not _quite_ a glare. Steven was at least surprised that Peridot didn't have any restraints, and wondered if Opal was just thinking the same thing.

"We decided that we _might_ just try to talk to her. You managed to get Jasper on _neutral_ terms with us, and I figured she was as pro-Homeworld as any Gem could get. So we'll just try to see if we can get Peridot to be..." She leveled her four hands out. "... _chill_."

Connie took a closer look at the unconscious Gem. She wasn't exactly what she'd pictured when she tried to imagine the Gem that started this whole thing, but to be fair, Steven's interpretation of her wasn't exactly...accurate. She was expecting something closer to a Saturday-morning cartoon villain with a monocle, and definitely taller. "What if she just tries to leave again?"

"There's really nowhere she can go," Opal said with a shrug. "There's no way to get back to Homeworld now, and no way to call for back up. I'd almost be willing to just let her roam free if I didn't think she was going to cause trouble."

Looking over her again, Steven _still_ couldn't place what was different about her. "Did something happen to her? She looks different, but I can't figure out why."

He wasn't expecting to hear a snort. Opal had a hand over her mouth, trying _so_ hard not to snicker. Looking quickly to the kitchen and not finding anyone, Opal crawled closer. One of her hands pressed a finger to her lips, hushing them. Steven and Connie just blinked at her and one another, wondering what on earth was so funny.

Opal drew back the blankets, grabbed hold of Peridot, and...

"She's a shortyyy!"

So...Steven had never stood right next to Peridot, but she was absolutely taller than him from his guess. He'd assumed the things on her arms and feet were just part of her—he knew the others could shift their body however they wanted, so he didn't rule floating fingers and holographic projections out—until he'd seen them fall to the ocean. He just hadn't put two and two together.

Peridot _was_ a shorty.

Opal continued to choke back laughter. She even gave Peridot a little shake so her short legs dangled in the air. She may still be bigger than him, but only by mere millimeters.

Steven didn't laugh. He _did_ coo, however, because to be quite frank, short-and-sleeping Peridot was rather adorable. And not at all helping was that her body suit had little yellow socks like _footy pajamas._

"Look'it her!" giggled Opal. "She's itty-bitty...!"

"Hey."

Opal's jaw snapped shut. Ruby and Sapphire stood at the very top of the stairs. Ruby was holding two bowls of cereal, so while Sapphire got to cross her arms over her chest, Ruby got to give Opal a _very_ unamused glare.

"What's so funny about being 'itty-bitty'?"

Opal coughed. In seconds flat, Peridot was back under the blankets. "Nothing."

Ruby and Sapphire just shook their heads. One bowl of cereal was given to Connie, the other to Steven. He hadn't realized it, but he was pretty hungry.

"So," Connie said as she stirred her spoon around. "I guess we just...wait for her to wake up."

"It could take a while. To be honest, I'm concerned." Opal tapped on her chin once again. "Obviously everything was too much for her, but maybe it was _too_ too much. I don't know if there will be lasting effects."

"It isn't unusual to be overwhelmed after your first cross-fusion," Sapphire agreed. She rounded the bed to sit down near the window. "Though I don't know if anyone's first experience was quite like Peridot's."

Steven let his Apple-O's marinate to the appropriate semi-softness as he thought. Peridot wasn't a friend right now. Jasper was more of a friend than she was, and even _then_...

She was still very, very much against them and he wouldn't put it past her to figure out a way to get back at them. (Though considering Peridot's bravery already seemed in short supply _and_ she no longer had her tools, he doubted she'd be able to.) She'd tried to kill him when they met, and was absolutely delighted at the prospect of handing them to Homeworld like a present.

Still, he found himself worried for her. Perhaps his experience with Jasper—whose hatred of them had been _much_ stronger and who had also tried to kill him—had given him some kind of hope. If Jasper could be talked to, then perhaps Peridot could, too. He wouldn't expect another member of the Crystal Gems anytime soon, but maybe some good old-fashioned conversation could be used instead of violence. And honestly, whatever it took to avoid another game of cat-and-mouse they'd had with Jasper, he'd take it.

So, crunching his cereal, he said, "Why don't we—"

He stopped.

He frowned.

He turned to Ruby, appalled.

"You put the milk in before the cereal, didn't you."

Ruby's head snaked back far enough to fall off her shoulders. Sapphire looked as confused as she did, and so did Opal, but Opal's was of the why-would-you-DO-that confusion. "How in the stars can you _tell_?"

"Nevermind," Steven sighed, even though he would very much like to educate Ruby on how simply unacceptable it was to pour the milk first. Connie's chewing had slowed down immensely like she was trying to find some weird flavor that he had, but it wasn't a flavor, it was an _essence_. There was no time for that right now, though. "Why don't we try to help her out a little bit? See if we can get her up and running again?"

"I'm not opposed," said Opal. Sapphire nodded and Ruby shrugged. "Though I'm short of ideas at the moment."

Connie stirred her spoon around, frowning as she said, "Not that I want to encourage unnecessary violence, but...In movies, when someone's knocked out, someone will try and slap them."

She had just barely finished when Ruby smacked Peridot across the face.

"Ruby!" cried Steven. He almost dropped his (tainted) cereal to the floor.

"What?" Ruby held her hands up, but didn't look particularly guilty. Behind her, Sapphire held a hand in front of her mouth, looking caught between scolding her or defending her. "I was taking Connie's lead!"

"But did you have to do it so enthusiastically?"

"She tried to kill you and she threw us all in space-jail!"

"No more hitting! None." Though he did wag his finger at Ruby, Steven _did_ look to Peridot to see if it had worked. She hadn't even so much as twitched an eyelid, even though she'd been smacked hard enough to turn her head. "Okay, what else?"

Everyone paused for a good minute of chin-tapping contemplation. Steven drank his apple-cinnamon-and-mistake flavored milk, and had just finished when Sapphire said, "Maybe she needs a very loud sound."

Steven sucked air into his lungs.

"Whatever you're about to do, it won't be loud enough."

Steven deflated.

"I think we have something that can help. Opal—permission to go into your room?"

"Have at it. I'll keep my post."

Sapphire quickly floated from the loft to the bottom floor (carefully avoiding the large hole). Steven nudged Connie towards the stairs. "We'll come with you and help look for it."

Though she kept her eyes on her feet as she walked down, Connie asked, "What about you, Ruby?"

"You guys go ahead." Ruby followed them down, albeit by jumping down onto the sofa, bouncing up, and flipping half a dozen times in midair before landing in the kitchen. She didn't so much as blink. "I have my own theory."

* * *

It had been a while since he'd gone into Opal's room, but it looked just as he remembered: glittering rock and shimmering waterfalls, but filled with all of Opal's collections. These were the best proof of just how old the fusion was, because it couldn't take anything less than centuries to have so much. Just walking in through the door, there was a mountain of typewriters (some of which looked fresh out of the 1800s) and a mountain of vintage suitcases. Connie gawked at it all, especially when they passed by stacks upon stacks upon _stacks_ of books so old they seemed ready to turn into dust at any moment.

Future vision or not, Sapphire didn't seem to know just where to go, and went forward in a random direction. Steven had never really questioned just how large the rooms of the Temple were. It seemed like Gem magic was allowing them to break the laws of space by "fitting" in the cliffside, so he guessed it didn't matter.

"So...what are we looking for?" Steven asked. "Is it like an airhorn or a microphone or—Oh, hey, Hoberman spheres!"

Sapphire was kind enough to pause in her steps while he took a minute to pick one up and expand it a couple of times. And also insert his head inside so he looked like a pincushion, as the feral part of his brain demanded. "Imagine a megaphone and a jack-in-the-box fused together. She has a couple of them here, I know it."

They left the Hoberman spheres behind, but only fifteen steps later, Connie gasped, " _Byobu_!"

Behind her lens-less glasses, her eyes glimmered at the sight of the delicately brushed artwork on the folded screens. There had to be at least thirty of them, set up one in front of the other, looking like the length of an accordion. Some depicted beautiful lengths of cherry blossoms, or lily pads on a pond, while others depicted soldiers riding into war on horseback.

"Guess Opal really does have a collection of _everything_ ," Steven mused aloud.

" _Seriously_. I've never seen so many historical items in one place—quills!"

Steven tilted his head. To him, it just looked like a mound of feathers, some fluffy, some straight as an arrow, white and gray and black. "I think those are just feathers."

"No, look at the sharpened tips!" Connie shut her mouth with an audible click of teeth. She turned to keep admiring the collections they weaved through, though Steven couldn't help but think she was also trying to hide the blush on her cheeks. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be getting so distracted— _MATRYOSHKA_."

Steven couldn't help but chuckle. Sapphire didn't seem bothered at all, so he gave Connie a little nudge to the side and told her, "You can go explore if you want. Maybe you'll find what we're looking for before we do."

"Well...Only for a minute." Connie took off for the load of colorful wooden nesting dolls, calling over her shoulder, "One minute!"

While he and Sapphire kept walking, Steven thought that he couldn't blame Connie at all. Opal's room could be its own museum, and like Connie said, he wondered how many of these things would make historians froth at their mouths. He and Sapphire passed a small pond of crystalline water. Its surface rippled from a waterfall with an unseen source. It would be easy to get lost in here—to be caught in the curiosity of all these collections and the serenity of the cavern.

Unfortunately, just as Steven was marveling as the pure clarity of the water, he realized that he and Sapphire were alone once again.

It wasn't Sapphire's fault for his sudden discomfort—or, well, not entirely. She hadn't even looked back at him for this stretch, only turning her head every now and then to search for their prize. They _had_ been better about putting him on the spot, too. It seemed that her and Ruby's talk on the beach (which he still felt _slightly_ guilty about eavesdropping on) had finally convinced her to calm down a bit.

The problem was that Steven had gone right back to feeling so many conflicting things all at once. He wanted to try and work towards figuring this all out, but he wanted to hold onto the anger longer. He hated the idea of having _the_ talk, but at the same time, the thought of putting it off for much longer unnerved him. It reminded him a bit of Amethyst and Pearl's argument that had made them split apart—Amethyst wanted to address how they were feeling _now_ , and Pearl wanted to focus on the larger problem at hand.

No wonder Opal had come undone with that argument. Steven was having the same one inside his own mind.

Finally, he came to a compromise. He would try. If Sapphire didn't shut down the conversation, then they would go on. If she did, then they would wait.

He was still convinced that the others were the bad guys—not _bad_ guys, but the bad guys in _this_ situation. He couldn't think of anything they could tell him to make him change his mind about whether they should have told him everything sooner or not, but if there was a chance, maybe he should hear them out instead of backing away from all their attempts.

"Hey, Sapphire?"

Sapphire had been passing by a small assortment twisted and rippled mirrors, the kind you'd see in the hall of mirrors at Funland. Judging by the way she froze when she saw herself with a five-foot-long neck and a body the shape of a pumpkin, she'd forgotten what it was for a second. She breathed a sigh of relief and replied, "Yes, Steven?"

...Steven had gotten distracted, too. He couldn't help himself—he _had_ to squat up and down when he got in front of these things. But then, remembering, he quickly spat out, "Oh, um—Do you...want to talk?"

Sapphire did not answer immediately. "About..."

He could tell she wasn't trying to be cheeky: she was leaving it up to him, _just in case_ she was wrong. "About what happened at the birthday party. All that stuff."

She kept walking.

"Are you sure you want to talk to me? Opal and Ruby have things to say, I'm sure."

"I don't want to have a three-on-one talk," Steven sighed. "And besides...I'm sure you have stuff that _you_ want to say."

Though she kept on walking, her footsteps had slowed down. They were going through a collection of painted vases—instead of stacked up or thrown together like all the other collections, this one lined the path like a fence. Sapphire extended a hand to touch the smooth porcelain as she passed.

"I do," she affirmed. "But...Where would you like to begin?"

Steven thought about it. He was already having second doubts about this, but he still feared leaving it untouched for any longer.

Finally, he asked, "Did I do something that made you guys not want to believe me?"

"No! No, no. We..." Sapphire stopped for just a moment, then kept going. "Well, I'm sure you can imagine why we didn't tell you when you were _younger_..."

He did. He wasn't going to argue against that. That he had the right to know everything didn't change the fact that you don't really discuss intergalactic wars with a toddler while they're playing with building blocks. And even after that, Steven had to admit that he wasn't absolutely proud of what he used to be like. He thought the Crystal Gems just went on trips to battle cool monsters. Plus—though it's embarrassing—he also did not focus so much on what being a Crystal Gem entailed so much as, "You guys are leaving me out!"

Sapphire continued, "But no, it wasn't about punishment or anything like that. We're all very proud of how far you've come."

Steven paused.

"I know you rigged the test."

Sapphire stopped again, right at the end of the vase collection.

 _Finally_ , she turned to him, though of course he did not see her eye. "What?"

"The test. The do-over I asked for. I know you guys rigged it where nothing would go wrong."

She stood still for a moment, and quiet. Even when she turned back around, she hesitated to keep walking. Steven supposed he would rather they do this instead of just facing each other head-on and not doing anything.

"Well." Sapphire made a sound almost like clicking her tongue. "I'm very sorry."

"So even if it wasn't 'punishment,' you guys still didn't— _don't_ —think I can—"

"I'm not sure if it's fair to compare these things, Steven." Her voice was not unkind. "I'm sorry that we rigged the test, but you're not as resilient as us. You've gotten hurt before, even when we were all together. It's not— _easy_ to design something intended to hurt you."

Steven wanted to argue against it, but Sapphire was right for one reason: they were getting two arguments mixed in together. This wasn't about the test, it was about what they have and have not told him.

"Okay, let's just forget about the test. Even when I got better, why didn't you guys tell me?"

She hesitated again. Now they stood among a collection of fake flowers—Opal had set them up to look like a miniature patch. The paper and plastic petals were strewn along the ground, some damp from the moisture of the cavern. Sapphire audibly sighed.

"I had hoped," she said, slowly, "that there would be no need to. I had hoped that capturing corrupted Gems would be our only worries, and even when Peridot appeared, and Jasper came to take us, I held onto that hope."

 _I hoped for that, too, you know._ Steven bit his tongue before he could say as much. Instead, he answered, "But what about after it was clear that wasn't going to happen? Why not then?"

"Because I was still holding onto hope."

Sapphire pulled up short as she looked down at their feet. She plucked up one of the fake flowers—a pink rose. A few of the fabric petals had frayed. A bit of cheap green plastic fell off. She twirled the bud between her fingertips, and Steven watched.

"I know you wanted to be just like us," Sapphire said softly. "I know that we told you that you would do great things one day, and I know we focused so much on your Gem half. I know we have responsibility for putting pressure on you."

Sapphire raised her chin and looked at him. For the first time in his life, Steven was outright _annoyed_ that he couldn't see her eye.

"We didn't want you to be like us. You wanted the exact opposite of a normal life. A normal life is all we wanted."

It didn't make it better. Steven's frustrations did not melt away like snow in heat.

Yet, it did make him think. He'd been so convinced of it being about his shortcomings, but he hadn't even considered that keeping so many secrets could have been the Crystal Gems trying to leave the past behind them.

Even looking back, they didn't exactly go into their every trial and tribulation with smiles on their faces. They wanted their problems to be over quickly and easily—when Jasper was coming, they did not cheer as they went to the battlefield. When the Cluster was discovered, they did not perk up at the call. They were scared and angry.

Steven didn't know much about what happened in the war. In the others' defense, he did not feel entitled to such stories. Those were their tales of battling for their lives and their right to be who they wanted to be. They weren't just bedtime stories to put him to sleep, they were _real_ things that had happened to them. They went through all of it for a peaceful life on Earth, and even then, their ending has not been a happy one.

He was still angered that they made this decision for him—Sapphire may consider it sparing him trouble, but he still felt that he was dismissed for their own convenience. However, he could not blame the Crystal Gems for being tired.

 _You can still see where they were coming from,_ Steven thought, _AND know that they were wrong._

Steven nudged his toe against another rose by his foot—darker pink and more frayed, misshapen from time. "Okay."

Sapphire stopped twirling her rose. "Okay?"

"No, not—it's not 'okay.' I mean 'okay' like...'I heard you.' I get what you're saying."

He perhaps spoke a bit more defensively than he should have. He didn't know why, but for some reason, the idea of Sapphire smiling in relief, believing that he has forgiven her and Ruby and Opal—he just didn't want that. He didn't want her to think that. It was either tell her the way it really was now or harshly turn her smile back into a frown.

Thankfully, Sapphire did not flinch. She looked at her rose for a few seconds more, then gently tossed it back among the others. She walked forward, and Steven followed.

"Thank you for listening," Sapphire told him.

While she had her back to him, Steven rubbed at the back of his neck. He supposed he felt a bit better now that they've talked...but not much. "Yeah..."

Splashing footsteps came running to them from the surrounding mountains. From between a tangled jungle of fairy lights and a very alarming pile of push-pins, Connie appeared once more with her cheeks slightly flushed, a bit out of breath. She was carrying something, but she set it against the web of fairy lights before Steven could see it.

"There you guys are!" she panted out. "Okay, two things. First, Steven, look!"

Then she pulled out the thing she'd been carrying. It had to be the largest matryoshka doll Steven had ever seen in his life. It was almost as big as Connie.

_"Whoa!"_

"There's like sixty-three babies in here, you have to check it out!" Connie rolled the doll forward to them. Then she composed herself and went back to fetch her second prize. "Second..."

She held out something that Steven had never seen before. It was a dull green-gray color and seemed to be made of a combination of metal and plastic. There was a long handle as well as a lever to rotate, and the lever was attached to something disc-shaped.

"Is this what we're looking for?" Connie asked.

"That's it," Sapphire affirmed with a little cough. Obviously she was trying to compose herself after such a change in subject. "Good job, Connie."

Steven coughed as well. "Well. It really _does_ look like a megaphone fused with a jack-in-the-box."

Connie turned it over in her hands, curious. "So...do you just...?"

She started to wind up the handle. A sound rose from inside the little unassuming thing, louder and louder— _too_ loud, and Steven was flinching just as Connie finally stopped. It was a horrible one-note wail like the siren outside the Temple, but _worse_. And it seemed like it would have just kept getting louder and louder. Connie took her hand off the handle completely, looking embarrassed.

Sapphire had hardly even reacted. "Yes, that's how it works. I think we can go back now."

* * *

One half of Steven's Room was just the same as they'd left it. Peridot still laid unconscious on Steven's bed. It looked as though she hadn't budged a centimeter. Opal was keeping her vigil, still looking as bored as ever.

The other half wasn't as unchanged, however. Every flat surface, from the entire island to every few inches between the kitchen appliances, was covered in everything they had in the cabinets. Cans of soup, boxes of rice, bags of chips, containers of spices, _everything_. Every last door and drawer had been pulled open. At first Ruby was nowhere to be found. Then they saw that she was army-crawling through the upper cabinet.

"Uh...Ruby?" Steven called to her. She paused in her journey for a moment, only to set down a can of cream of mushroom soup (which Steven didn't even know why they had, because _he_ certainly wasn't going to eat it.) Then she went on crawling. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, yeah." Ruby's red hand popped out and waved at them. "Go on, don't mind me."

So they did and they didn't. Sapphire beelined for Steven's TV and all the things tucked beneath it. While she threw aside video game controllers and old chargers, Steven asked Opal, "Anything new?"

She shook her head. "Not even a twitch."

More curious than anything else, Connie pressed the back of her hand to Peridot's forehead. Steven could have told her that Gems don't get sick, at least not in the way that she was thinking, but he didn't. He was more focused on Opal, who didn't seem to notice him staring at her.

Should he perhaps do this one-by-one? It hadn't been easy, but it had been easier than he'd _thought_ to talk to Sapphire first. When he talked to her alone, he didn't have to feel wounded eyes staring at him—no one had interjected to add their own arguments, agreements, or two cents. Plus, as he'd said before, they didn't all share the same mind, or the same voice. Opal could tell him something that Sapphire hadn't or wouldn't. Same for Ruby.

He fekt hypocritical. He'd been so happy to at least get to make the first step, and now he was upset about it. Maybe it was because if he asked Opal if she wanted to step out of the room for a moment, everyone will probably know what for.

"Steven, which wire goes in what?"

Sapphire was kneeling over his stereo speaker that Greg had given him—it didn't have the same crystal-clear quality anymore, but Steven still used it sometimes to play music. Sapphire had managed to get all the wires in a tangled mess. She hadn't even managed to get the actual power cord into the outlet.

He got them all in order, but it wasn't until she stood upright again that he saw she was holding one of the microphones of _Kissy Kissy Karaoke_. It was as funny as it was discomfiting. It had been months since they'd last played.

"Alright," said Sapphire. Sapphire held the microphone in one hand and picked up the siren in the other. She gave the microphone an experimental tap, and a fuzzy but loud pitter-patter sounded off. "Now. I need you and Connie to put in earplugs and as many earmuffs as you can."

Steven nodded, moving for his drawers. "Okay—"

"I need to clarify: not 'a lot' of earmuffs. _As many as you can_."

Swallowing down fear, Connie and Steven complied. It took them a minute to find the earplugs, then another minute to get all Steven's earmuffs on their heads. They ended up with two pairs apiece, and even then, Sapphire gave them two pillows to wrap over their ears.

After that, there was no sound. None at all. All Steven could hear was the blood in his ears. Opal told them something, but there wasn't even that drowned-out sound where he could _kind_ of hear her, it was as if someone had picked up a remote and put her on mute. While Opal facepalmed, embarrassed, Sapphire picked up the nearest notepad and wrote, _GO OUTSIDE._

So after _that_ , Steven and Connie walked outside, down the steps, and all the way to the shoreline. Then the blue shape of Sapphire's head pulled back from the window.

Steven and Connie still didn't hear a thing. But they did watch as every window of his Room silently shattered into a million pieces.

Steven took a deep, deep breath. "We have got to stop tearing the house apart."

He meant to mutter this, but with his earmuffs, he ended up screaming it. Not that Connie heard him anyway.

When a red hand waved in the (empty) window, they returned. Of course, now the wooden floor of the Room was littered with glass shards that crunched under their feet as they walked. The lightbulbs in the ceiling had similarly popped, and every face of every photo frame had become a spiderweb. His television had broken—that was...what, the thirteenth time, now?

But despite the mess, Peridot still had not stirred.

From the kitchen, Ruby groaned. Opal shrugged. Sapphire sighed. None of them seemed bothered that their hair was standing away from their faces at forty-five degree angles.

"It was worth a shot," Sapphire tutted as she shut off the microphone. Steven wondered if it was even going to be able to pick up sound anymore.

Opal turned back to Peridot—her sheer mass of pin-straight hair tangling the shades on the empty window—and sighed. "Well, that's one idea down. Anybody else got anything?"

Ruby's oblivious voice called, "Hey, guys? We're going to have to use bowls to drink for a while, cause..." She gestured to the fine array of glass splinters that used to be their glasses. "Yeah."

Somehow, all the foodstuffs she'd taken out had survived the sonic blast, albeit now scattered along the counters and floors. Ruby was picking up all the dented cans and creased boxes.

"Hey, Ruby?" Connie called out before Steven could. "What are you doing?"

"Admitting defeat," sighed Ruby. "I've looked through every last bit of food we have and I couldn't find a _single_ can of chicken noodle soup."

Steven didn't know what to be more confused about: Ruby looking for a can of chicken noodle soup, or the fact that they didn't have any. Seriously, cream of mushroom but no chicken noodle? "Why do you need chicken noodle soup for?"

"Because it will fix everything." Ruby went back to picking up wreckage, but when she saw how the others were looking at her, she sighed in the same way Steven had sighed when he found out she'd poured the milk before the cereal.

She picked up a _Kitschen_ magazine from the counter and flipped through several glossy pages before finally sliding it over to them. The advertisement spread out on the page was for Cambridge-brand chicken noodle soup. A young boy sat swaddled up in his bed with an ice bag over his head and a thermometer sticking from his mouth, looking feverish. His mother was extending a spoonful of steaming soup to him like an angel saving a mortal. The swirly letters at the top read, _AIN'T NOTHING CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP CAN'T FIX._

"Look, you know that Gems don't need food, ergo I don't need food. But it always works. I don't know how humans have managed to create something that eons of Homeworld technological advancements cannot achieve, but they _did_. I have never once ate chicken noodle soup and _not_ feel ten million times better."

Footsteps came trotting up the stairs, and the door (which, ironically, had its screen repaired) swung open. Jasper stepped in with several planks of wood and a red toolbox under her arm. She stopped short when she saw the fine layer of shattered glass on the floor, the empty window panes, the busted lightbulbs, and the cracked picture frames.

"I'm only responsible for the floor," she sniffed.

As she went to the large hole in the floorboards, Steven asked, "Where'd you get all the wood?"

"I went to that...what's it called, a hardware store?" Jasper opened the toolbox and dug out a rusty hammer and a handful of nails. "Got them all there."

"Did you pay for them?"

"I gave the human behind the counter the green paper things, if that's what you mean."

"How many?"

"I don't know, however much was in that little leather pouch you had by your bed."

Steven looked into the middle distance. "Yeah, I figured. What about the toolbox?"

"Found it."

"Looks like we're going to have to head into town, too," said Ruby. "For some soup." She looked at the walls. "And some picture frames." She looked at the ceiling. "And some lightbulbs." She looked at the windows. "And a glazier."

"Shouldn't we pick up around here fir—" Connie cut herself off. Somehow, in the few seconds that they'd had their attention on Jasper, Ruby had managed to get the entire kitchen back in order. "Oh."

"I'll be back as soon as I can with the chicken noodle wonder," Ruby announced.

As she walked for the door, Steven stepped forward. "Why don't Connie and I come with you? We can get the shopping done quicker."

"Oh. Okay." Ruby shook off her momentary surprise easily. "Keep watch, you guys. We'll be back."

"Got it," "Okay," "Whatever," came the others' replies.

Steven and Connie followed Ruby outside. It was going to be a bit of a walk to the grocery store. It would be long enough for Steven to decide if he wanted to have a talk with Ruby, too.

While they walked down the sandy length to the boardwalk, Steven decided on something that made it all a little easier. He wasn't completely wrapping this up with a nice little bow on top. This wasn't going to be over the second that they talked about it. These were just going to be the first steps towards resolution.

Ahead of them, Ruby was oblivious to two things: his contemplation, and that Connie and Steven didn't have her unending stamina and thus couldn't keep up with her army-jog. He was grateful for the former.


	5. The Remedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven continues his quest to speak to the others. The quest continues to go ways he didn't expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me??? Accidentally post a chapter of my Ouran High School Host Club fanfiction to this story in a sleep-deprived craze???? It's more likely than you think.

The grocery store wasn't horribly packed, not at that time in the morning. A few earlybirds were strolling their shopping carts while the cashiers rubbed sleep from their eyes. Thankfully, the automatic doors did not freak Ruby out anymore. She'd been here enough times that the everyday details weren't oddities to her anymore. That said, she'd never had to come for more than one or two things, so when she went to the line of shopping carts, she took a minute deliberating which "model" would provide them with the best speed and weight distribution.

For some reason, the prospect of having a talk with Ruby as he'd had with Sapphire _here_ didn't seem so daunting. In Opal's Room, there was hardly anything but their own footsteps and the dripping of water to make background music. Here, cart wheeled rolled on the floor, the cash registers beeped and clicked, and the overhead stereo system was playing some wordless jazz music. It didn't feel like everyone would be holding their breath for them.

"Alright," Ruby said as she pushed the shopping cart—at her height, her hands were level with her chin. "First we need to find out where to go."

Ruby pointed to the large numbers that hung above each aisle. She then proceeded to go the nearest shelf and climb up the racks like a ladder.

As she stood at the top with a hand over her eyes, a captain looking out across a vast sea, one of the cashiers sighed, "Ma'am, we asked you to please stop doing that."

So Ruby flipped back down to Connie and Steven. "Home appliances are aisle twelve, canned soups aisle three."

"Let me get the home appliances," Connie offered, taking Ruby's place in front of the cart. "You and Steven can pick out what kind of soup is best."

Ruby smiled and gave Connie a little pat on the back. "You're showing a great deal of initiative today, Conrad. Meet us at aisle three when you're finished!"

Then she took off jogging down the linoleum floor, sliding between the gap of a mother and her baby carriage. Connie watched until she'd disappeared out of sight to turn to Steven and ask, "Does she think 'Connie' is short for 'Conrad'?"

"I'd take it a compliment. Conrad's an amazing name. It literally has 'rad' in it!" Steven and Connie walked forward a bit, until they had to split. "You don't mind tagging along with us, do you?"

"No, it's fine! I've been wanting to get out of the house, anyway. Plus, you know..." Connie pushed the cart back and forth. "If you don't want to be alone with any of them right now, I get it."

Steven nodded, equal parts relieved and embarrassed. "Thanks."

"Just...tell me what's going on when you get the chance, okay?" Connie worried at her lip for a moment. Ever since she'd awkwardly left Steven's party, she felt like she'd left him alone to deal with something horrible. All she knew was that the Crystal Gems had kept some secrets from him, but what secrets and how big they were, she had no idea. "But you can talk to them, first."

She said it so casually, but Steven had to ask, "Did you hear me talking to Sapphire?"

"Not really. You guys were far away, so it was like... _murmurmurmurmur_. I could just tell it was serious."

From behind him, Ruby poked her head out from the aisle and called, "Steven! Come on, I need soup input!"

Connie pushed forward with a comforting smile. "Go ahead, Steven. Take your time."

She left at last, as if she was holding him back. Steven smiled as she went, but it was bittersweet. He'd missed her.

When he got to aisle three, Ruby had once again climbed up the shelf, now dangling halfway up. Her face was just a few scant inches away from the cans of Good Deal-brand chicken noodle soup, but her eyes were narrowed into slits as if she was trying to find a microscopic detail.

She dropped down as Steven approached. "Steven, I didn't even realize that some chicken noodle soups could be more powerful than others!" She zigzagged from one side of the aisle to another, despairing. "How do you measure it? Is it the sodium? Do the noodles need to be shaped like noodles, or can they be loops? Or _stars_?!"

Steven laughed, short and quick. He'd forgotten how funny it was watching the Crystal Gems get so up-in-arms about the most simple human things. It wasn't just the pain of nostalgia that had him stifling himself, though—Ruby looked genuinely distressed as she started picking up random cans. "It's all chicken noodle soup, Ruby. They're all powerful."

"Then why are there so many different _kinds_?" She started pulling out one can of each: Good Deal, Cambridge, Annabel's...She looked regretful for letting Connie take the cart now.

"There just are. It's no biggie, just—whoa, whoa!"

Steven had to football-dive forward to keep a can from crashing down to the floor. Then another, when Ruby jumped. In record time, she'd managed to get an entire armful of cans. "Ruby, we don't need that much!"

"Well, we can try them all for ourselves and see which work best. Besides, we don't have any at home." Ruby's arm went bright red as she shapeshifted it. Now the length of her forearm was hollow and flimsy like a bag—which was as useful as it was horrifying, especially as she dumped all her cans inside. "Do you see anything else we need? Do you want some more cream of mushroom?"

"No. No one eats cream of mushroom soup. Cream of mushroom is to soup that honeydew is to fruit. No one ever gets _excited_ to see honeydew in a fruit salad."

"Then why do we have it at home?"

"I don't know, it found its way in!” Steven pushed all the cans of cream-of-wrong far back on the shelves just for emphasis.

Ruby was distracted by looking at all the other varieties of soup and stew available, and Steven was again left at that door that he hesitated to knock on. There was no way to do so without it being the most awkward thing on the planet. At least Ruby was too busy scrutinizing some beef stew to stare him down.

"Hey, Ruby?"

"Yeah, bud?" she acknowledged, but then muttered under her breath, "Cream of _wheat_...?!"

"I want to...talk to you." Steven rolled his shoulders back, crossed his arms—tried to be as casual as he could. "About what happened at the party and everything."

This time he said it a bit rushed, just wanting it to get out of the way. Ruby finally tore her eyes away from the labels to give him a surprised look, mouth agape for just a moment before she snapped it closed. Then she started straightening the cans in her arm-basket—just to be busy, just so she didn't have to look at him head-on.

"O-okay...but..." Ruby coughed. "Why—Why do you want to just talk to me?"

"It's not just you. I talked to Sapphire about it earlier. I just—want to see what all three of you guys have to say for yourselves. It's not like you all have the exact same reasons, right?"

Ruby jerked her shoulder in a shrug. "I guess...What did Sapphire say?"

"She said she didn't want to tell me 'cause she wanted everything to work out." Steven scratched at his cheek, feeling a bit guilty for scoffing at such a sentiment before. As if Sapphire was the only one who didn't want things to go back the way they were. "She didn't want it to matter. She just wanted us to take care of everything that's been happening and move on."

The red Gem nibbled at her cheek a moment. As expected, she tugged at her headband, too. "I get that, I guess."

"So you guys didn't all keep things secret for the same reason?"

"I—guess not...? I mean, to be honest with you, bud..." she sighed. "We didn't talk about it. We should have, but we didn't. Opal said 'let's not tell him,' and we said 'okay,' and that was that. No discussion."

So everyone was in the same boat, but Opal had been the captain. Or at least, she'd just said what everyone else had been thinking. Steven stuffed his knee-jerk outrage away. Opal was the leader of the Crystal Gems, yes, but she didn't run a dictatorship—Sapphire and Ruby were perfectly capable of going against her wishes if they pleased. Heck, Ruby _had_ , to some degree—she was the one who told him how there were more Rubies and more Sapphires.

"Sapphire said that it didn't have to do with me not being...good enough, at least for her." Steven sniffed. "None of you guys wanted to tell me when I was younger, and I get that. I'm with you guys on that one. But even when I got better, you still didn't tell me everything..."

"Yeah. I mean, no. Yeah, but no. Like she said, it wasn't about you not being good enough or anything like that! I just..."

Ruby huffed, looking nervous. Steven didn't think he'd ever seen her so hesitant to take initiative on anything before. She leaned up against the metal shelves.

"For me, I guess I just didn't want to freak you out, you know? And I didn't want you to get it into your head that you had to get involved with something you didn't want to." She ran a hand through her thick hair. "I know we tell you that you're going to do really great things one day, and I know we encourage you to get better with your Gem powers and we let you come on missions and stuff, but..."

Ruby's hands reached out and clenched as if to grasp something. "But we wanted you to have a choice in all of this! That's what we fought the whole war for— _choice_. Homeworld wouldn't let me _not_ be a soldier, they wouldn't even let Opal exist...From the second you were born, you got to pick what you wanted to do. And when you made it clear that you wanted to get involved in everything...Well, for a while, we kind of hoped you'd grow out of it. You were a kid, you changed your mind about stuff all the time. But anyway...Then you made it clear that you _weren't_ going to change your mind. And I thought, if we told you all about the Diamonds and how the war went, how _bad_ everything was, you'd get it into your head that you got in too deep and you were trapped."

She tilted her head back, looking up at the fluorescent lights. Steven waited, unsure of what he was going to reply with.

"I know you feel this huge responsibility to protect the Earth. I do, too...but I feel that because I knew from day one what I was getting into and I _still_ decided that no matter what, I was going to fight for myself and everyone else. Not because I realized there was no going back."

Steven looked away, thinking hard. Choices. It was all about giving him choices, and he understood that just as much as it confused him.

"When you guys decided not to tell me anything," he told Ruby, "that wasn't...giving me a choice. That was making it to where I didn't have to _make_ a choice."

"I just...don't agree, bud. I hear you, I do, but that's not the way I see it. You could decide to stop being a Crystal Gem any time—you still can. I don't think we were depriving you of making the choice yourself, I think we were keeping you from feeling pressured. It's like all those things that would come up in your old cartoons—'Would you pick an apple, or a cupcake?' And then it would go on and on about how apples are nutritious and good for you and cupcakes are _bad_ and _evil_. Like, why should anyone feel bad about picking the cupcake?"

Steven looked away, lips pursed, and Ruby stopped. A shopping cart strolled by, slicing through the quiet.

"So..." Steven sighed. "Now...Do you think you should have told me?"

The corner of Ruby's mouth creased into her cheek. Her boot tapped on the linoleum.

"Now that I know how much it hurt you, yeah. I'm sorry that you thought it was because I didn't trust you, or you weren't good enough."

"But—" Steven ran a hand through his hair, fingers snagging in the curls. He really, _really_ did not want this to become a fight, just a conversation. "I'm happy that that wasn't the reason why, but don't you think I was still...entitled to know about all of that?" He pressed a hand to his chest. "It has to do with my whole existence! It has to do with Mom!"

"But it _shouldn't_ affect you. You didn't fight in the war, you didn't decide to rebel against Homeworld! I get that you think it has to do with you, so you should know about it, but I just don't..."

Ruby ran a hand down her face, unable to find the words. Steven himself struggled for a moment. For all the anger and frustration, it seemed like it all boiled down to what he wanted versus what Ruby thought was best for him. Steven thought all these things about Homeworld and the Diamond should have been told to him as soon as they thought he was mature enough—it was about where he came from, the history of the Crystal Gems. But Ruby didn't want him to think he had to be involved in a conflict started by others.

Finally, he asked, "When you found out that Sapphire and Opal and Mom didn't tell you about the Rubies, how did you feel?"

It would've been easy to snap it at her—gotcha!—but he asked it with genuine curiosity. Ruby froze where she stood for a moment, eyes wide, and then her face pulled tight. Not quite anger. The expression of telling herself not to feel it.

As she narrowed her eyes down at her feet, Ruby answered, "That's not the same thing."

"How? It was something that had to do with you and they didn't tell you because they didn't want you to be upset. How is it not the same thing?"

Ruby's lip twitched to curl up. "Because it wasn't just about not hurting your feelings, Steven. It was about pressuring you into doing something you may not want to."

Steven opened his mouth.

"But...okay. Yeah, I get what you're saying." Ruby heaved out a gust of a sigh. "I'm a hypocrite, getting hurt like that and then doing the same thing to you. But listen..."

She came closer to him, standing just a foot away. She kept their eyes locked. She didn't touch him, but she made sure that he was listening.

"Another reason that what happened then is the same that's happening now? Even if the others were wrong not to tell me, they did it because they cared about me. Not because they wanted to hurt me."

Steven didn't say anything to that. Somehow, this conversation has made this whirlwind inside of him both better and worse.

He was at least somewhat relieved that it wasn't all about not trusting him or thinking he wasn't good enough, holding all his past mistakes against him, nothing like that. It was because they cared, and they didn't want to hurt him.

Like Ruby said, does that make them right? No. However, now the little sparks of guilt were starting to ignite in his chest again, because he wondered if he could really call them wrong, either. It could not have been an easy choice to make—either tell Steven the full story and make him feel hopeless and trapped, or keep it from him in hopes that he'll never find out lest he be betrayed.

He was starting to think that there may not be a right or wrong person here. He did not think we was wrong for feeling angry and betrayed, but now, listening to what Ruby and Sapphire both had to say, he didn't find them to be entirely wrong if their intentions were just to protect him.

Steven nodded just to tell Ruby he heard her. He didn't think he could keep up this conversation anymore, not when he needed to have a long talk with himself.

Ruby nodded, too, and stepped back—accepting that the conversation was over.

Another shopping cart rolled into the aisle, this time manned by Connie. The cart was full of cardboard boxes, but she didn't look particularly thrilled with a job well done.

"Hey, guys," she greeted as she approached. "So...It occurred to me that I have no idea what size picture frames you needed, so I just grabbed a bunch. I also don't know what kind of lightbulbs you like." She reached into the cart and pulled out two boxes: one with the standard round lightbulb, the other swirled up. "Snowball or ice cream?"

"Why not both?" asked Ruby. She started pulling her soup cans out and stacking them in the cart. "I think this is a good haul."

Steven looked at all their items and just remembered that not only did he forget his wallet, but Jasper had emptied it. And there was no way he was about to ask Connie to buy all this stuff for them. "Hey, Ruby, how are we going to pay for all of this?"

"Hm? Oh, don't worry about it."

Ruby's Gem flashed in her palm. Now she held a plastic credit card. "Greg gave me this last time I saw him. Said it'd be easier to deal with this instead of giving us cash all the time."

"Oh...Well, isn't this still a bit much?"

Ruby shrugged. "I consider chicken noodle soup a medical supply. Now, is that everything? Have we forgotten anything?"

Steven and Connie shook their heads.

"Great. Now." Ruby beckoned them both closer. With the three of them huddled together, Ruby whispered, "We're not going to tell Greg about this...but you can each get one candy."

So no matter if Connie was the smartest, most mature girl on the planet, and no matter if Steven was now a teenager, and one that fought off intergalactic forces at that...they both let out a little trill of delight. Connie went to speeding the cart down the aisle, towards the checkout line and the shelves of candy.

As they stood in line, Ruby scrutinized the card, as if still confused as to how it worked. She seemed to have let their conversation go easily enough. Now Steven only had one Crystal Gem to confront, but now he wondered if it would be easier or harder, knowing what he did now.

* * *

Ruby carried their bags on the way home—both so Steven and Connie could enjoy the candy they'd picked out at the register, and because approximately five thousand cans of chicken noodle soup would snap their arms off if they even tried to lift them.

When they came back in, Jasper was kneeling on the floor, finishing up her work by painting a finish over the boards. She'd actually done a very good job—it was a bit obvious where the original wood ended and the new began, but certainly better than Steven ever could have managed. Either she or Opal had taken the liberty to sweep up all the glass with the broom now propped against the wall.

Opal looked bored to tears at this point. She'd picked up one of Steven's _The No Home Boys_ books and was flicking through the pages, her eyes glancing up every ten seconds or so to see if Peridot had lifted a muscle. It was starting to be unnerving, seeing the green Gem completely still.

Ruby tossed the frames and lightbulbs on the island (Steven hoped they were not instantly shattered) and tore open every cabinet she could get her hands on. She started setting out every bowl they had, the ceramic clacking down on the surface.

"I got us two of every kind," she explained. "Half is for future purposes, half is for now! We're going to use each and every one of these and see which gets Peridot up and at 'em the best."

All the cans had their lids popped off, and Ruby poured them one-by-one into bowls. Steven squirmed—it wasn't pleasant music, the squishy, wet sound of noodles and broth plopping into containers.

"That's going to be a lot of soup left over," Connie fretted.

"Then I hope no one had lunch plans today." Ruby filled her last can with water, poured it into one bowl of soup, repeat. "If I could please ask for a vacant workspace. I need my full concentration."

Sapphire glided out of the Temple Door. Jasper hunched over her work like a cat protecting its kill, but Sapphire just stepped aside. She paused for a moment as she saw Steven there once more, but carried on.

Looking up and seeing Opal still torturously keeping watch, she floated up the steps to her. "Why don't you take a break, Opal? I'll keep watch."

_"Thank you."_ Opal set her book down and hopped down below so she could stretch out her arms and legs to their full length—she couldn't do it up in the loft. Steven imagined he would have heard her bones cracking if she had any. "I can't believe I need a break from doing nothing."

Jasper finally stood up, dusting off her hands. There were slight stains of brown finish on her fingers. "Alright. I'm not trying to pick a fight with anyone, but if any of you step on this thing before it's dried, there _will_ be consequences."

"Noted." Opal ignored the door and just stepped through the empty window. Her hair instantly picked up in the breeze. "I'll be back in three hours. Maybe twelve."

Then she jumped up, quick as a bullet, out of sight.

Back in the kitchen, Ruby growled with frustration. The microwave door refused to close on the three bowls of soup Ruby had stuffed in. "Why—aren't—these—things—bigger?! Ugh, fine!" She slammed the door on the first two, hit the button, and picked up the other in her hands while the microwave hummed. "I'll do it myself!"

"Hey, Jasper?" Connie pulled out the boxes of frames and lightbulbs from the plastic bag. "Could you help me get to the light so I can replace the bulbs? I can't reach."

"You'd think years of evolution would make you humans taller," Jasper grunted, not... _un_ kindly. Still, she said, "Just point me where."

Connie caught Steven's gaze over her shoulder and gave him an affirming look. Ruby was busy with the miracle soup, Jasper lifted up Connie with one arm to the hanging light, and Sapphire looked just as bored as Opal had already. No one was paying mind to him, so Steven left with no fanfare.

Outside, there were none of Opal's signature oval toe-prints in the sand below. Steven pressed himself against the railing and looked up. It was hard to see against the blinding sunlight, but on one of the Temple's hands—the one that held their washer and dryer and had a clothesline set up between the fingers—had a pair of legs dangling over the edge of the palm.

He had to go back inside to get to the Warp Pad, and again was unnoticed, even as the lights flashed. It took half of a half of a second to make it there. It was very calm and quaint up here. A pair of his jeans gently flapped in the wind. Somewhere, seagulls cawed.

Opal had been sitting on the edge with her chin propped in her hand, but turned with wide eyes as she Warp Pad lit up behind her. She instantly relaxed when she saw it was just Steven.

"Yo," he greeted her.

"Yo yourself." She said this casually, but then pondered aloud, "Yo-self? Yo-yo-self?"

It wasn't exactly the lightest of ice breakers, but Steven needed to say something before he got into what he intended, and it was relevant. "You were right. Kind of."

She blinked at him. "About what?"

"Chrysocolla." She stared a moment longer, but finally her lips formed an 'o' and she nodded. "It was more than just us, though. I think, anyway. When I was there, I saw some of their memories."

"Really?" she asked. Her fascination was genuine. It was strange to have knowledge of something she and the others didn't. "What did you see?"

"Peridot's been treated bad by Homeworld basically her whole life...She did her work the best that she could, but..." He shrugged. "The second she did something wrong, they'd punish her. And then _we_ came along, and like...Obviously _we_ weren't the bad guys, but they blamed Peridot for everything we did. They would have done something bad if she ever made it back. They'd shatter her if they found out she fused with Lapis."

"Well." Opal pursed her lips, and turned her gaze back down to her dangling feet. Her voice was bitter. "That's Homeworld for you."

Steven didn't know if there was an irony here or not—that Opal said it so factually, because he already knew from their stories. They just hadn't told him _all_ their stories. Was he still looking for reasons to stay mad? He couldn't tell.

"What about Lapis?"

"It was hard to tell with Lapis. Homeworld interrogated her. Threatened her a lot, trying to get her to tell them about the Crystal Gems. But..." The corrupt images of the others, with their glassy smiles and unnatural shapes, flashed in his mind. "Yeah, she's still mad at you guys."

"Not surprising." Opal picked up a little rock and sent it flying. It disappeared somewhere in the sand far below them. "It wasn't uncommon for Homeworld to put Gems into weapons. I guess that, and the fact that it was a mirror..."

Steven would rather not remember that whole fiasco that had happened with the mirror that Opal had obsessed over. That said, he supposed now he understood it from Opal's point of view. To him, Lapis was trapped, a friend in need of rescuing, but Opal probably just saw a dangerous weapon trying to sway him.

"So, they stayed fused because they were scared. Once they stopped, they'd have to deal with all of this again. But they decided to let go. I guess Lapis just wants to get as far away from us as possible, but I dunno what Peridot will do."

"Well, like I said..." Pearl's Gem flashed, and Opal withdrew something he couldn't see in her large hands. He heard the snap of opening metal. "I'd let her be if I she wouldn't be a problem, but we know she will be." She held up the item to him: a small tin packed with salty little fish in oil. "Sardine?"

"Nah, I'm good," Steven replied. He only occasionally had a taste for them. He didn't feel any hungier when Opal then pulled out a container of Himalayan pink salt and just dumped the whole thing in with the sardines.

It would be easy, to just sit here and take in the view and the peace and the quiet, but it wasn't what Steven was here for. He hesitated for a second, wondering if he was invading some peace that Opal wanted. Then he decided that he'd let her be after they talked.

"Hey." He reached over to the bottle of detergent on the washing machine and picked at the peeling label. "I wanted to talk to you about something."

Opal looked back at him, lips covered in pink salt and oil. "Hm?"

"About the party and all that."

Almost immediately, Opal turned back around. She'd summoned a fork, too, and picked at the delicate pieces of fish in the tin. Steven did not miss the way that her posture went stiff.

"What do you want to talk about specifically?"

Steven shrugged even though he knew she wasn't looking at him. "I talked to Ruby and Sapphire earlier, about why you guys didn't tell me. Sapphire said it was because she hoped it wouldn't matter and things could go back to normal; Ruby said she didn't want me to feel pressured to do anything. I'm not saying that things are totally okay now, but all this time, I thought it was because you guys didn't trust me, so...I don't know. Now that I know that's not the case for Ruby and Sapphire, I wanted to know what you think."

Steven had taken his eyes off of her at some point, and when he looked back, she'd done something to her food. Now her hands sat folded in her lap. The two others lay on the stone. It was a painfully awkward attempt to be casual.

"I agree with them."

Steven stopped his scratching at the label. "O... _kay_ , but do you have anything to say yourself?"

One of Opal's hands tugged on one of her sidetails for just a second.

"No."

His mouth pressed into a hard line. Ruby and Sapphire had both been hesitant and awkward, and he'd been understanding of that. It wasn't a conversation to smile and laugh through. Still, their discomfort stemmed from concern—knowing that this was a tense subject for him, not wanting to say anything to further cause insult. It was understandable.

But of all three of them, he hadn't thought that _Opal_ would be one to clam up like this. She wasn't nervous but willing, she had gone stiff, almost cold. Perhaps it was just because the two parts of her didn't know what to do? They'd all had different reasons, and Opal could have two instead of one.

"So you didn't say anything for the exact same reasons as Ruby and Sapphire?"

"Mm-hm."

Steven's mouth pressed harder.

Opal's hum was a little sharp. Not mean, but...'And that's that.' It seemed that he had invaded her time after all, but what could be stressing her so much that having her time away from it being interrupted would annoy her so? If it was the whole situation with Steven, it seemed odd to turn away the opportunity to make it even slightly better.

"Is something wrong?"

Opal paused. "I don't want to talk about this, myself."

He nodded, slowly. This wasn't a horrible outcome. It just meant his plans had to be postponed. That was fine—he'd rather Opal be willing instead of forcing her to talk when she wasn't ready. "Okay. How about later?"

Opal's hands smoothed across the drape of her top. It was not a casual movement. It was the type of movement you do when you're keeping yourself in check. You need to do something with your hands, but you're trying so hard for it to be controlled.

"Can I ask you something, Steven?"

"Sure...?"

"What is the...outcome that you want from this conversation— _these_ conversations?"

He willed his head not to snake back, even though she still wasn't looking at him. It seemed such an obvious question, if her tone was any different, he'd think she was almost mocking him. She wasn't, but she was so tense, trying hard to keep her calm.

"I want to know why you guys didn't tell me."

"Now you know. I've told you, it was for the same reasons Ruby and Sapphire didn't."

"Suuuuuure." He nibbled on the inside of his cheek—the flesh inside was already going tender from him doing it so much. "But that doesn't mean this is all...over."

"What else, then?"

"Well. Eventually, we're going to have to talk about _what_ you guys didn't tell me, not just _why_." Steven's hands started moving about, making gestures that no one was paying mind to. "I only know a little about the Diamonds. I imagine there is a LOT more about the war that I haven't been told yet. Jasper told me about what happened to Pink Diamond, but I think there's more to it than that."

Opal stayed quiet and still for so long that Steven almost called out to make sure she was still awake. Watching her sit there, his stomach went tighter, feeling tense. The way she sat without moving was unnatural. Opal was as elegant as a dancer: she had perfect control over every part of her body, but this wasn't a matter of keeping posture. She was rigid, locked up.

"Well...it seems that we have a problem, then."

He didn't take his eyes off the back of her head. "What?"

"We can tell you things. About the war and the Diamonds. We can do that. But. I can't tell you everything."

"Why not?"

"I just can't."

He'd felt anger, in those other conversations, but that anger had been frustration, confusion—a small flame that he quickly snuffed out because he knew Ruby and Sapphire were at least trying to explain.

This was different. He wasn't expecting to feel a new surge of outrage—not at _Opal_.

"That's not an answer." Steven steps closer, his flipflops loud on the stone. "If you won't tell me, at least tell me why!"

"I _can't_. I—" Opal's hands ran down her face, all the way from her hairline, until they settled on her mouth. For a moment, her fingers dug into her cheeks. "Steven. The stuff that I can't tell you—I will do my best to make sure it doesn't matter. I can't predict the future like Sapphire, but everything that's happening with Homeworld and the Diamonds...I just want to make it pass. Then everything will go back to normal."

"Things were never normal," Steven countered. He was not blazing with fury, at least not yet, but he was still arguing. "We spent all of our time hunting down monsters—hunting down the Crystal Gems that got corrupted by Homeworld! And if we weren't doing that, we were trying to figure out what I am and what I can do. We still don't know everything about me."

"But that was _our_ normal. I liked our normal." Opal finally twisted around to him, pressing a hand to her chest. Desperation was written all over her face. "We've been spending the last hundreds of years hunting down our friends who have been turned into monsters that don't recognize _themselves_ , let alone _us_...I'm not happy that we didn't get a 'happy ending', but otherwise, you wouldn't even be here! It's not just because of us not telling you, Steven, you'll just never know what it was like. Going out to eat cinnamon pizza, cleaning the dishes after lunch, walking to the store just so we can buy a new shower curtain then getting home and realizing we hate the one we picked out—it was the closest we were going to get. I wish things were better, but now I wish things were just like they used to be."

Steven knew she had a point: he was never going to know what things were like for them. You could describe a painting to someone, but it'll never be the same as them seeing it for themselves. He only sees glimpses in their stories, the way their eyes go dark when they talk about it.

Still, he went on.

"Things aren't like that anymore."

"Can't they be, again?" Opal's fingers clenched. "Isn't that what we want?"

For just a moment, their roles had reversed, and Opal sounded like a lost child. Steven could answer the latter question, but not the former. He was rattled for a moment, not used to seeing her like this, uncomfortable, unnerved.

"Opal...It doesn't matter if it wouldn't have mattered, alright? Even if none of this was happening and monsters were still all we were dealing with, it's about me. It's about my mom and what she went through until I got here."

"That doesn't matter, either!" Steven sighed, but Opal insisted, "It _doesn't_! Whatever Rose did, whoever she fought, none of that should affect you and who _you_ are. You aren't supposed to—to be the next chapter, you're supposed to be a new book!"

_She just doesn't get it,_ Steven thought. Or maybe she did, but she didn't want to. There was no point arguing with her anymore, especially now that she'd settled the 'why,' except now this conversation had opened an entirely new issue.

Even if he hadn't said as much point-blank, he had expected all of this to lead to the Crystal Gems telling him everything. He supposed he thought that with all this talking, they'd understand that their reasons were wrong. Sapphire want _ed_ it not to matter. Ruby want _ed_ him to not feel pressured. Past-tense. Concluded.

Opal's reasons were not in the past tense. She still did not—still wouldn't—tell him everything. Yet, even looking through this whole conversation, Steven didn't think it was because of wishing for the old normal to return. _That_ reason was in the past...

She "just couldn’t." There was something she wasn't telling him, and she wouldn't.

Steven looked away from her, angry, sad, frustrated, resentful, confused, annoyed, hurt.

There was no telling where they were going to go from here. They may not even be able _to_ go anywhere.

"So...You're not going to tell me everything. Because you 'can't.'"

Opal swallowed. He saw her throat move. "Don't say it like that. I really can't."

Steven was already turning back for the Warp Pad. He just wanted to be away from her now. Every second staying there just made it worse.

"It's not because of anything you did."

"Yeah." Steven clicked his tongue. Her attempt at putting a bandage over the wound was lame. "I know that now."

As he stepped onto the glass, he turned so he faced Opal when he left. He had to admit, he wanted to leave with the last word—a little punctuation mark just to let her know that no, everything was not okay now.

He did not get that. Opal's lips pulled together. For a split second, her eyes flashed. She was hurt. She was conflicted. She was resentful. But she was not backing down.

"Good," she said with a click of her tongue as well.

By the time the lights took her away, she had already turned her back on him.

* * *

He was in a state of numbness as he returned. The Warp Pad's lights just came and went as quickly and mindlessly as a blink of his eyes. He was so upset, he wished he could just blink the last ten minutes out of his memory, but it stayed in his brain like a stubborn, buzzing fly.

Somehow he felt both better and worse than he had this morning. He couldn't tell if he'd taken one step forward or one step back. He _is_ relieved that the others didn't keep their secrets out of distrust or dislike or anything similar, but now what? He could ask Ruby and Sapphire to tell him everything, but he was unsure if they would be willing to go against Opal's call...

Steven realized that he also didn't confirm with Ruby or Sapphire that they _would_ tell him everything. He wanted to think that it wouldn't be too difficult to convince them, especially in Ruby's case, but Opal had sowed a seed of doubt in his mind. He had so rarely felt true anger at her before, such sheer _outrage_ , and now it was all-consuming. What he wanted, what he point-blank told her, was all ignored—whether because she couldn't or wouldn't see it through his eyes. He felt as though Opal was treating him as a toddler, refusing him because _she knew what was best_.

He didn't want to sink into another void. The sheer thought of another week of non-stop bitterness, anger, and hurt already exhausted him. To coax himself out, he forced himself to look around the room and be in the present. All the lightbulbs had been repaired. The kitchen counters and island were spattered with spilled soup, the microwave door still open.

Jasper and Connie stood in the middle of the Room, looking up towards his loft. Connie looked caught between concern and bafflement, while Jasper had her hands on her hips, thoroughly annoyed. Steven came closer to see what was happening.

Peridot's mouth had been pulled open as she laid still, and just as Steven walked up, a spoonful of soup was dribbled in. Then a second, and a third.

Ruby let out a hard growl of frustration and set the bowl down on the nightstand—broth went sloshing over the side. She grabbed the next one, and despite her gritted teeth and rigid shoulders, carefully ladled that soup into Peridot's mouth as well. Still no response. Another growl, even harsher, and Ruby just went onto the next bowl. Behind her, Sapphire had her hands extended, clearly debating whether she should even touch the red Gem for comfort.

"Why—isn't—it—working?!"

This time, Ruby had soup splashing onto the comforter. It was already speckled and stained with brownish-yellow spots. Peridot just laid as unresponsive as ever, mouth agape and wet. Ruby went to the next bowl, then stopped. She'd already used that one, and that one, and that one...

Ruby grabbed fistfuls of hair and pulled them out so hard and quick that they _rrrripped_ from her scalp—even Jasper flinched along with everyone else. The hair in her hands blinked away, just like the hair that regrew into her head.

"HOW?!" She raged. The space around her shimmered with heat—the nearest bowl of soup to her started to waft up steam anew. "HOW IS THIS NOT WORKING?! I've tried every flim-flammin' brand of soup from that ding-dong store and nothing! NOTHING!"

Sapphire took a deep breath and finally patted Ruby on her shoulders—with the very, _very_ tips of her fingers. "I didn't want to ruin your optimism, but you should know this was...never going to work."

"No! Chicken noodle soup can fix anything!"

Steven was unnerved at how utterly _desperate_ Ruby sounded...

...not at failing to wake Peridot up, but at the possibility that chicken noodle soup may not be as infallible as she'd believed.

"Hold on." Ruby threw the stained comforter off Peridot's body and grabbed her shoulders. "Maybe she just needs help getting it down—"

Ruby was somewhat correct. Gems by nature never required food of any sort, so if they wanted to eat, it was on them to provide the means. He recalled Opal having to show Jasper how to shapeshift tastebuds, a throat, and a stomach. So Peridot didn't have any of these things. Meaning that all that soup that Ruby was feeding her wasn't going to go anywhere.

So...

Steven didn't see it—at the angle he was looking up at them, he only caught Peridot's sleeping face turning away—but when Ruby unintentionally rolled Peridot to the side, he _heard_ the sound of uneaten soup go sloshing and plopping to the floor.

Sapphire immediately stepped backwards, lips curled in disgust. Ruby blinked into the middle distance, still holding onto Peridot even as broth drip-drip-dripped from her lips to what Steven woefully assumed was a rather large puddle on his floor.

"Um." Ruby gently laid Peridot back down. "I'll...I'll clean this up."

"No offense, Ruby, but..." Steven squirmed where he stood. Connie was looking rather green herself. The only person who didn't look disgusted in some way was Jasper, who looked like she was holding back _laughter_. "I-I don't think I want to eat chicken noodle soup for lunch anymore..."

Ruby and Sapphire both descended from the loft. Ruby trudged for the cleaning supplies with her tail between her legs, while Sapphire floated down to stand among the others.

Jasper finally choked down her growing smile. "If none of this was going to work to begin with, why did you even bother?"

"I didn't say that _none_ of our ideas would work. The likelihood may be tiny, but just about anything has at least the possibility of happening." Sapphire clasped her hands together. "Just not _that.”_

"What's the rush, anyway? The longer she's out, the longer she's not a problem."

Connie's eyebrows furrowed together. "Wasn't she your partner?"

"I was assigned to escort her on her mission to this planet. We are not friends, acquaintances, or colleagues—even the word 'partner' is too much."

"Well..." All eyes turned to Steven. He ran his hand up his sleeve, a bit sheepish. "You were pretty rude to her.”

"Yeah, and she would say that 'my tempermental nature is proof that Quartzes were made to fight, not lead' in her reports. What's your point?"

Ruby walked back to them with a bucket, some paper towels, and some cleaning spray. The handle of a mop jutted out over her head. "Are we sure we should even be trying to help her? She tried to get us all killed."

"So did Jasper," countered Steven. "No offense."

"None taken. I did."

"Plus," said Connie, "Maybe she can tell you guys things about Homeworld's plans. I know she may not budge, but it wouldn't hurt to at least ask."

"When you say 'ask' to you really mean 'ask,' or do you mean...?" Ruby smacked one palm against the other, as if slapping someone across the face.

"Ask as in ask," Steven quickly cut in. He was starting to think Ruby was upset she never got to get her 'revenge' on Jasper and was hoping to get it with the other Homeworld loyalist who had tried to hurt them. He'd have to keep an eye on her.

"I've looked to see what might happen," said Sapphire. "The farther into the future I see, the more possibilities there are. Though there are millions upon million potential outcomes, it is _possible_ that Peridot could come around. At least enough to come onto neutral terms, like Jasper."

Steven perked up at once. "Really?"

"Yes." Sapphire paused. She raised a finger up to her chin. "Although one of the futures in which she does come around somehow includes hot dogs raining from the sky, Funland burning to the ground, and everyone wearing disco pants as a new fashion trend, so make of that what you will."

Still, Connie turned to Steven and patted his shoulder with a reassuring smile. She already knew that his talk with Opal was done, and though she didn't know what happened, she had caught onto his less-than-happy disposition when he came back. She was eager to cheer him up. "So she might come around!"

"And disco pants might come back!" cheered Steven. Sapphire made a pessimistic hum of warning, but he ignored her. "Things might start to turn around for us."

"Maybe," Ruby agreed. "But let's not get ahead of ourselves. First we need to see how she's actually going to—Where did she go."

Everyone swiveled around to look up at the loft.

The bed was empty.

The screen door banged shut.

Ruby dropped all her cleaning supplies to the floor. "Ah, nuts."

They all ran for the door in one great mob, almost clamoring over each other to get out. Peridot—shorter, without any of her gear, but just as frantic and frazzled as they all remembered—was thundering down the steps as fast as she could. She tripped on the first flight and tumbled to the landing in a heap, but nevertheless kept going.

"Getawayfromme!" She screeched back at them. "Getawaygetawaygetaway!"

Sapphire moved first. She zipped away from the others, leaving a gust of wind in her wake, and landed at the bottom of the stairs just as Peridot came running down. She didn't summon her knuckledusters, but she gritted her teeth and stood her ground even as Peridot barreled closer.

Steven didn't know what Peridot was going to do—everything she'd done to try and hurt them before, she did with the tools she had at her disposal. As she raised her arms and snarled, he held his breath.

He let it out just as quickly. Peridot smacked Sapphire all over with her hands like a toddler trying to get someone away from their toys. Sapphire went to the sand with a surprised squawk, and Peridot ran away on all fours, completely feral.

Ruby jumped down to help. "Sapph, you okay?"

Sapphire pushed herself up. Her bangs had come away from her face in the scuffle, and her one eye blinked at nothing. "What just happened?" 

Jasper landed on the sand with a thunderous THUMP that had both Sapphire and Ruby bouncing up into the air. "How did you survive the war." That was all she said before she, too, sprinted after the small green Gem. Steven and Connie scrambled down the stairs, unsure of what they would even do.

Peridot managed to evade Jasper not by speed—Jasper had her beat there, as with many other skills—but by moving away in zigzags and loops across the sand. When Jasper's giant hands made to grab for her, she lurched out of the way, sometimes flipping head over heels before going back on her feet.

"I can't believe this!" Peridot wailed as she tumbled away again. "You're with _them_ now?! _YOU'RE A CRYSTAL GEM?!"_

"I'm not with them," Jasper hissed. Her frustration was boiling over, especially when Peridot managed to snake right between her legs uncaught. Her jaw was clenched hard enough to break. "But I'm done with Homeworld, too!"

"I-I-I will report this!" Peridot just barely managed to keep her head as Jasper swung for her. "You're beneath me now, y-y-you traitor scum! _Just wait until Blue Diamond hears of this_!"

"She's not my Diamond," barked Jasper. _"And she's a giant crybaby!"_

Finally Peridot froze just so she could make the largest, longest, loudest gasp that probably any creature has ever made. At last Jasper managed to grab hold of her.

Peridot squealed as the Quartz's massive hands squeezed around her body. Her arms were trapped at her sides and she could barely wiggle her toes. Jasper kept her teeth gritted, but there was a near-feral satisfaction in her eyes.

Steven saw what was going to happen before it did. Jasper was going to tear her apart, snap her like a glowstick— _something_ that would poof her instantly. Perhaps it was fear at having to wait any longer, or maybe worry that such a thing would ruin any chances of Peridot coming around, but Steven yelled as loudly as he could, _"JASPER, NO!"_

Jasper pinned him with a baffled expression, and her grip slacked just enough—Peridot twisted from her grip, biting her hand at the same time. Jasper yelled while Peridot took off running once more. The orange Quartz hesitated to pursue her, as if debating whether it was even worth it if she couldn't do it her style. Then she decided that no one who bit her got to walk away, and took off after her.

The others joined the pursuit, though Steven didn't even know what they were going to do. They just couldn't let her run into town, or out of their sight. They'd just have to try and grab at her again.

Despite Peridot's crazed running, they were starting to close in on her. She was pumping her arms and legs as fast as she could, babbling incoherently about "gettingawaygettingawaygettingaway." Then there was a burst of purple light right in front of her, and she dug her heels into the sand so hard and fast she toppled over onto her butt.

From high above on the Temple's hand, Opal summoned another shining arrow into her grip. She didn't know if she could fire one weak enough not to ensure that Peridot _wouldn't_ poof (being a technician not built for battle, and all) but at the very least, she could try and herd her. When Peridot lurched to go around the smoking crater now left in the sand, Opal let her next arrow fly. A blue flash and a loud BANG, and Peridot was spinning around with a broken wail.

With the shore as wide as it was, they couldn't form a perfect wall—Peridot managed to weave between Ruby and Jasper before either could catch her again. Opal released three more arrows in quick succession. Peridot steered away from the wave of smoking sand that went up into the air.

Jasper and Sapphire moved further away, trying to keep Peridot between them all. Steven could tell soon enough that it wasn't going to do much good. There was just too much space between them all, and Peridot still moved so unpredictably. She was the world's tiniest fly that they were all trying to catch.

He was tempted to ask if maybe one of the others could fuse into a bigger, faster Gem, but he doubted they would have the time. Or the ability to get on the same wavelength.

Another arrow came zipping down when Peridot came too close to their invisible outfield—it wasn't clear exactly how, but some way or another, Peridot managed to duck out of the way just in time, and Ruby took more brunt than her. Thankfully she was not struck head-on, but she let out a startled cry as she was sent through the air, her body leaving a stream of smoke behind her.

She spat out sand for what felt like the millionth time in the past two days. "Opal, _watch it_!"

A minute or two more of this embarrassing cat-and-mouse game—with a great deal of yelling, yelping, and growling—and Opal found a new strategy. She summoned arrows three at a time and waited until _just_ the right moment to trap Peridot in a triangle. Peridot's panic reached a fever pitch as she seized herself up and was caught in a momentary world where there was nothing but smoke and flame. She took off again as soon as she possibly could, but each time, the others drew closer and closer.

They were coming closer and closer to getting her once and for all. Steven was caught between relief and despair, but more than anything, he just wanted this over already. They were all drawing in with their prime game-faces. Jasper and Ruby looked about ready to take on the full force of Opal's barrages just to get their hands on the little green Gem.

At long last, Peridot made a misstep, and it was Connie who threw her body forward in a football tackle. A split second after her feet left the ground, her arms wrapped around Peridot's middle.

However, Opal had already released another round. Peridot and Connie both disappeared in the burning light and acrid smoke. Even from so, so far down, anyone could see Opal's face plummet.

"Connie!" several voices cried out. Any weapons they were still holding onto were dismissed. Steven walked right into the triangle, coughing through the acrid smoke. He prayed, _prayed_ , that Connie had been spared. That she and Peridot were both still there, and not blown away.

His prayers were answered. Connie still had her arms wrapped tight around Peridot, but she'd already peeled her eyes open and was looking down at her with...pure confusion. The others batted the smoke away from their eyes to see. Opal gracefully glided down from her perch—she was with them in the span of five seconds.

Peridot's eyes had shut once again. She was limp. Her limbs had gone still. Yet her body was perfectly fine, not scorched or blazed or pierced. Her Gem was as normal as ever.

Ruby's eyes narrowed. Gem anatomy didn't work the same as humans', but still, she asked, "Did you knock her out?"

"I think..." Connie let Peridot go gently, and poked at her cheek. "I think she's just tired. Again."

Peridot's mouth slurred out, "Bunch'a clods..." Then she let out a delirious snort, all while never opening her eyes.

Everyone sighed. Except for Jasper, who pointed at Peridot with the hand she'd bitten. "Can I at least smoosh her a bit?"

"No," Steven snapped in as much of an angry-parent tone as he could manage. He was going to have to talk to Ruby and Jasper about reeling in their bloodlust when it came to the unconscious.

Opal bent down and picked Peridot up into her arms. She didn't protest besides a near-incoherent "fusion clod...!"

"So obviously we're going to have to take some precautions," Opal sighed. Peridot's head tilted back and her mouth popped open—she gurgled. "I'll take the watch again. Maybe we should make a better scene for her to wake up to. Light some candles, play some jazz..."

"It's worth a shot," Sapphire vaguely offered.

"Well." Jasper walked away, throwing a hand over her shoulder at them. "I'm going back to my cave. If you need me, don't."

Steven cupped his hands around his mouth to call, "Thanks, Jasper!"

"I did nothing," Jasper called back.

With her gone, Connie turned to the others and clasped her hands together. She was eager to help, but she was at a loss for what to do next. "Sooo...What should we do now?"

"I can't think of anything," Ruby said with a shrug. "Just wait. Again."

Steven dug the toe of his flip-flop into the sand. It was probably just past noon now. There was a lot of day left, and if they just had to wait for Peridot to awaken again, that meant he'd have a lot of time staying around the others until she did.

It wasn't a happy kind of excitement, but he was excited nonetheless for a chance to talk with Peridot. He didn't have many tender feelings for her at the moment, but rather the person she could become. At the very least, he wanted the chance to convince her that she didn't have to sit back and take all the abuse Homeworld was throwing at her. Lapis' face flashed in his mind. Another person he felt bound to help.

Still...Even if things had gotten marginally better, he didn't think he was ready to just sit around and relax with the three of them. He was pretty sure their conversations had just created more elephants in the room. Ironically, the past version of him would probably be determined to stay—even if it was just to babysit an unconscious person, he was a Crystal Gem, he was supposed to be helping! Now he was squirming at the idea.

"Well." Steven threw a thumb back in the general direction of It's a Wash. "I think I'm going to go back to Dad now and have lunch."

"You sure?" Ruby rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "Obviously our chicken-noodle-soup-appetites are ruined, but I can still make something if you don't want to go all the way back into town."

"I need to get him caught up with all of this anyway," Steven answered. It was hard to tell if this was an awkward attempt to get him to stay or a genuine offer. "But thanks, Hank."

Ruby opened her mouth to reply—another attempt, or maybe just "okay"—but Opal beat her to it. "Do you need anything before you go?"

If the others noticed the tense pause that followed, they didn't say anything. Steven looked at Opal, Opal looked at Steven. It was a simple enough question at face value, but Steven couldn't help but sense something deeper. As if Opal knew that he didn't intend to come back after and was subtly calling him out for it. Or maybe Opal _didn't_ know, but she didn't _want_ him to come back. Or perhaps nothing at all.

He couldn't shake the feeling that she was angry at him for something. He just didn't know what.

Steven shook himself out of it. He wouldn't let it get to him—either out of fear that he was wrong, or the refusal to take blame for anything, it was hard to tell. "Let me go see."

"I'll wait here," Connie told him, giving him a little nudge.

He bounded up the steps two at a time. The others would be following him in, but he wanted a few more moments of space between them. He didn't look back at Opal, but something told him she wasn't, either.

To be honest, he might as well check to see if he really _did_ need anything. Even now, days later, he couldn't shake the feeling that he had left something behind.

He made it to his loft—questioned whether he should take his comforter to wash it, and carefully ignoring the unseen puddle on the other side of the bed—and went to his drawers. He really needed to work on organization skills. Other than the unfolded clothes, it was just a mix-and-match of all kinds of things—pencils, coins, socks without their partners, Chapstick, bookmarks, batteries, popsicle-shaped erasers, markers, pushpins, a watch that needed a new battery, rocks he'd collected...

Steven very nearly shut the drawer close when he caught a closer look at one of these rocks. Black, shining, almost like lava rock but just too smooth. It was atop a familiar folded map.

He pulled it out with the full intention of just setting it back inside. He spent a moment reminiscing about his visit to Nomore. He had no idea why Rose Quartz had any interest in the place, but he'd supposed he'd dropped it as another insignificant misadventures the Crystal Gems had just by being Crystal Gems. They had too many stories to tell in his lifetime.

_Not like they'd tell you anyway_ , a dark voice inside him scoffed. He silenced it. He was done with all of this for today.

But, as Steven set the rock back inside...He hesitated.

The past few months have been insane, to put it lightly. So much stuff happening so close to each other—often times he had to correct himself of what happened when, before this, after that. In this moment, as if he'd finally found two puzzle pieces that fit together, he realized something that he honestly wanted to throttle himself for not realizing sooner.

The day that he'd gotten this rock from Nomore was the very same day that he met Star.

Steven looked down at it again. It just looked like any old pretty rock, but now it was stirring thousands of questions.

Was there a connection at all? Did it all just boil down to coincidental timing? Was Star connected to Nomore, but not the rock? The other way around? If the rock had anything to do with this, then perhaps Star was a Gem after all? Did that explain why they could interact with the Gems in the Cluster? Had something happened to them that kept them from reforming despite not being trapped? Did that 'something' have to do with why they had grown so powerful in the Cluster's mind? Did that 'something' have to do with why Star only spoke to him and not the others? What was the 'something' that happened? What could it be that even the Crystal Gems could not explain who or what Star was?

Steven held the map and the rock close to him. He was scared now that this _was_ Star, and he'd just kept them stuffed in a random drawer for all this time. He was terrified that he could have broken them.

Most of all, he was confused, and full of dread. His mother may not have had any better idea about Star, but what was it about Nomore that she had it marked on a map?

The others might know more. It wasn't as if Nomore was a secret—it was a huge area that was common knowledge even among humans. Perhaps they could explain what had happened there and if Gems had anything to do with it.

Closing his fingers around the rock, Steven faltered.

Would they tell him?

Would they make the connection as soon as he told him where he got the rock from, then refuse to explain?

Would they try to take Star away?

"What 'cha looking for?"

Steven stuffed the rock and map into his pocket as quickly as he could. Thankfully, the others didn't notice. Ruby was the one who spoke up from the kitchen, looking up at him with a perfectly casual expression. Sapphire was walking towards the Temple Door. Opal was carefully maneuvering her way through the screen door with Peridot in tow.

They all looked the same to him. They all looked casual and calm. Yet, they had changed, and he feared that they would change again as soon as he told them.

Steven felt the outline of the rock pressing against the denim of his pocket.

"Nothing."


	6. The Nuisance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrysocolla may be gone, but now Beach City has another troublesome guest to deal with.

"Don't push yourself for me, Steven. I'll be okay."

"But...Don't you want to know?"

Star let out a sigh. Among the leaves and stems that filled the pots around them, they'd never looked so curious with their black light. They brushed against the long, feathery leaves of grass that had long spilled over the lip of its bowl. As they approached, a cluster of snowy blossoms withered shut.

"I do. But not if it means you'll have to deal with those guys."

Steven rubbed at the back of his neck. He was starting to wonder if he had bad-talked the Crystal Gems too much to Star. Now they often asked "what they had done lately" as if hurting Steven was everyday practice now.

The greenhouse was quiet apart from the cricket-like chirps of bugs he couldn't see. The room was packed from wall to wall with pots and vases filled with plants of every size and shape, every hue of green. Vines climbed all the way up the walls to blanket the ceiling. The panes of glass were frosted white. It was beautiful, in a sad sort of way—with the flora climbing all the surfaces and the cracks in the glass and the dirt collected on the floor, it was eerily abandoned, forgotten.

Star never paid any mind to their peculiar surroundings like he did. In fact, it seemed that every time Steven came to them now, he'd interrupted them as they were marveling at whatever new scene had procured for them.

"It's not fair to say no if it's just for me," he told Star. He brushed a finger against what looked like a Venus fly trap—the spiny mouth nibbled at him like a curious cat. "I'm perfectly fine asking if it means getting you closer to being out of here."

"'Here' isn't that bad. I know it's weird to say since I've been here for so long, but I actually like how peaceful it is." Star lowered down to a pot of moss so soft it could be a pillow. They never said if they disliked not having limbs and senses in this place or not. "Just wait until everything calms down, _then_ ask them. I've waited this long, I can wait a bit more."

Steven hesitated. Even Star knew that this whole situation with the Crystal Gems was going to end one day. As awful as what they did was, it wasn't unforgivable. His anger couldn't go on forever, especially with how talking to Ruby and Sapphire had helped him realize things from their eyes.

Still...It had been three weeks since their conversations had gone deeper than shallow. They were all giving him space, no longer desperately seeking any chance to be around him, but Steven had grown scared again. He hated to think that things could get worse, but every time he imagined demanding they spill about everything now, he couldn't hide from the worrying idea that they would refuse.

"Hey."

Star bumped against his side.

"It'll be okay."

Steven let himself smile. He'd only heard as much from Connie and Greg—a third voice did make him feel more at ease. "Yeah, I know."

"Anyway, I think you're being beckoned." Star drifted in the direction of the greenhouse door. The ghostly light was seeping through the wooden cracks, inviting. "We can talk later."

"Okay. After 'while, crocodile."

"See you again, reptilian."

Steven closed the distance to the door. Perhaps he'd forgotten, but did this place instantly disappear once he left? He hoped not. He didn't want to stop Star from admiring the plants.

* * *

The first thing Steven saw when he opened his eyes was the ceiling of It's a Wash, now aglow with early morning sunlight. He had his blankets twisted around his legs and he'd made a stream of drool down his cheek during his slumber. Gross.

It wasn't the sunlight or the icky drool that awoke him, however. It was his father's face, partially worried in its usual Greg Universe way, but still mostly resigned. "It's happening again."

Steven's face split into a yawn, and he stretched until his limbs couldn't stretch any further. Greg backed away to let him stand. His space in the building hadn't grown any further than the corner under the window, but it had filled considerably. For a while, it was nothing more than a bag of clothes and a box of belongings stuffed under his cot. Now he had his ukulele propped against the wall and a small box TV serving as his nightstand. Some of his Guy figurines in the window and an old poster he'd found in Greg's belongings served as his decorations. A sock without a pair was under the bed. A half-drunk bottle of water was on the TV.

He yawned a second time as he pulled out his bag and fished out his clothes. "Where at?"

"The Big Donut," Greg sighed. "Doug's already there."

"Thanks," Steven croaked. He grabbed his toothbrush and toothpaste and headed for the bathroom. "I'll be out soon."

He'd gotten used to his home away from home, even if it still hadn't quite felt like...well, home. If he could change anything, he'd just want an actual kitchen instead of the microwave and hotplate his father had, and he'd change out the cold linoleum floors and cinderblock walls for wood. Nowadays he often helped Greg with washing cars when he wasn't busy otherwise. He liked to spend most of his time in town, and had an extensive route that he walked daily. He'd seen several movies at the theater, and often ate lunch at one of the restaurants where he got a "Protector of the City" discount.

Greg was already outside getting his supplies ready for the day when Steven emerged from the bathroom. He paused at his bedside for a minute.

The rock was stuffed into the far corner of his pillowcase.

It was the only safe place he could think of now, besides his own mind. Already he'd gone back to Nomore to find more answers, but all he'd found was the ashy ground and the neverending fog.

He hoped that seeking the others out would only be his last resort. Until then, he would have to do some serious investigating and keep his fingers crossed.

He just wanted to solve the mystery of Star as quickly as he could, and perhaps not just for their sake.

Lion was dozing beneath the awning when he emerged. Steven didn't beckon him, but with a great, toothy yawn, the pink feline trotted after him. Steven couldn't recall the last time he'd seen Lion and he supposed it didn't matter. He was going to do what he pleased, when he pleased, and Steven wouldn't stop him.

Cutting through the main street of the Beach City boardwalk would take him to the Big Donut the fastest. This early in the morning (and so few people occupying the city anyway), the sidewalks were near-barren. A used napkin ghosted along the pavement like a tumbleweed. A familiar head of dark hair popped up from behind a corner. Connie was dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, clearly ready for a busy day, but she was yawning behind her hand.

"Need a ride?" Steven asked as a greeting.

Connie sleepily smacked her lips as she looked up at Lion. "You mind?"

Lion chuffed nonchalantly. Steven helped Connie throw a leg over Lion's back but didn't climb on himself. He figured walking would wake him up better, and besides—he'd fallen off of Lion's back in a half-asleep state before and it had cost him three robot-patterned bandages.

"Sleep well?" asked Connie.

"Mm-hm."

"See Star?"

"Mm-hm."

"Cool."

Perhaps if they were more alert, their conversation would be a bit perkier. Steven had finally told Connie about everything that had come to light (or not) since the party, and why it had ended the way that it had. The only thing he'd left out so far was his new theory on Star, if only because he didn't see how Connie could help and thus didn't want to stress her.

Since then, Connie had been a pillar of support for him. They hung out on a near-daily basis, if they could. Often they wandered the streets, lazed around the beach, maybe went to the arcade. A few times they'd bought a large boat of fries from Beach Citywalk Fries and shared them on a bench. Towards the water tower, they'd found a nice secluded spot among the trees and had turned a sturdy trunk into a dummy for Connie to practice her sword skills on. Steven had offered several times to go to Connie's to spare her having to take the bus to Beach City every day, but Connie always refused. She liked to get out of the house as much as she could.

Connie had, of course, taken his side in the whole thing, even if she had even less of an understanding of Homeworld and its history than him. He tried not to vent to her too much, but if he let out his thoughts and frustrations, Connie listened, and maybe gave her two cents without arguing.

She also often tagged along to these situations.

By the time they made it to the Big Donut, a crowd had massed together—if approximately seven people could be considered a 'crowd.' They used to be larger, but now this is commonplace, nothing to bat an eye over. Probably some of these people have only been brought over by the firetruck.

None of the Crystal Gems were there when they arrived, which Steven was grateful for. He hadn't been avoiding them entirely—once he ran into Sapphire at Fish Pizza, and Ruby came by to deliver a game he'd asked for with no awkwardness—but there were certain moods he got in where he simply didn't want to see hide or hair of them.

Lars and Sadie were a ways from the store, sitting on a bank of sand. Both were dressed in their typical uniforms, but considering the timing, they might not have been able to get any work done at all just yet. Lars heard them approaching and exclaimed, "Where do you keep finding these guys, Steven?!"

Steven yawned. "Space."

Finally he got a good look at their latest problem.

Peridot had climbed all the way to the very top of the giant donut on the roof. She scuttled back and forth along fake icing and sprinkles, eyes manic, hair on end. She was not particularly graceful, but her hands and feet kept an iron grip on the donut she was using as her perch.

"Stay back!" she barked down at all of them. "Stay back, organics! Don't you dare come any closer!"

Among the small throng of people, Jenny Pizza's nose scrunched up. "'Organics'?"

Buck Dewey cupped a hand around his mouth and called out (in as much a volume as he'll allow, being Buck Dewey), "I'm Irish!"

Other than the massive firetruck that had pulled up to the side of the building, there was also a familiar squad car with the slight bump on the front courtesy of a certain red Gem. Doug Maheswaran held up the massive megaphone in his grasp, and his booming voice called out, "Help is on the way! Remain calm!"

_"Don't tell me what to do!"_

Connie dismounted from Lion, at the very least not wanting her father to see her riding him when the sight of him alone still put his hair on end. "How long as she been up there this time?"

"Hey, sweetie. 'Bout half an hour. It's taking a while, but the most important thing is to keep our cool. We don't want to scare her any more than she already is." He boomed again, "Do not panic!"

"I respect you, Officer Maheswaran, and I don't want to tell you what to do because you are an officer of the law and I am not, _but_..." Steven clicked his tongue. "She's up there on purpose. She's not stuck or anything."

"Perhaps," Doug agreed, "But she _is_ scared. Just look at her."

The ladder on the back of the firetruck began to extend with a steady _brrrrrr_. The firefighter teetering on its end kept her calm as she was lifted high into the air, closer and closer to the top of the donut. Peridot scuttled away again. She was shaking like a scared Chihuahua.

"I'm here to help you," the firefighter recited soothingly. She extended her arm, wrapped in a foil for protection. "Grab onto my arm!"

Peridot hissed at her.

Steven buried his face into his hands and sighed. It was too early for this.

When they'd brought her back into his Room on her first attempt, they'd taken the measures to restrain her. She'd managed to escape that time through wit. Somehow she'd managed to use a paperclip, a pen, and some lint between the couch cushions to break out of her rope bindings.

After that, they'd brought her into Ruby's Room for a makeshift cell. There she stayed for two straight days, trapped in a Bubble just big enough to contain her. It had looked like two failed escape attempts (coupled with everything else she'd endured since she and the Crystal Gems clashed together) had worn her down. Though she sneered and snapped at first, she then became demure, almost pious. When she quietly asked if she could please at least come out of the Bubble, Ruby (guarding her at the time) let her do so.

It turned out Peridot had been watching their guarding schedules, and barreled through Ruby to run through the Temple Door just as Opal entered.

That made three escapes—three strikes. After so much struggle, frustration, and embarrassment, Opal had told the others to just let her go and see what happened.

Roughly thirty minutes later, Mr. Smiley had called because their "green friend" had come to the arcade and crawled inside the claw machine for refuge.

Thus started the pattern:

1\. Peridot would be taken back to the Temple. She would be restrained, but not terribly—in an attempt to keep her calm (and since she posed no real physical danger to anyone), there would be a locked door at most.

2\. Peridot would find some way of escaping, even if it meant just unlocking the door—which, to be fair, actually took her quite a while the first time around. Then she would run out of Steven's Room and take off.

3\. Peridot would last about thirty seconds out in the open. Then she'd get so overwhelmed by humans, organic life, human architecture and technology, basically all things 'Earth' and would panic. Thus far, she has crawled inside a mailbox, underneath the pier of Funland, atop the Deweymobile, and more. The Deweymobile was a particularly bad day, as she did not know that it could _move_ , and when it did, her screams of terror could not be matched by any siren.

4\. The Crystal Gems would come and get her. Sometimes kicking and screaming, sometimes without much fuss. It depended on just how frazzled she was, because even if she hated the Crystal Gems with every speck of light in her being, at least they were familiar, constant.

5\. Repeat.

The crowd watched for a while as the firefighter struggled with Peridot. When it finally looked like she'd gotten close enough, Peridot slid down to cling to the side of the donut, out of reach. Finally the firefighter was lowered back down to find a different strategy. She looked quite disappointed.

Lars cupped his hands around his mouth and called "Would you just get down already?! We were supposed to start making donuts thirty minutes ago!"

Peridot bristled. She liked being talked to by humans just as much as she liked the fact that they _could_ talk. "D-Don't talk to me like that! I have—no reason to fear you!"

Lars replied with a simple, "Boo." Peridot scampered behind the donut.

Doug sighed and turned to Steven again. People were starting to walk off, and Doug had lost some of his gusto. The whole thing was starting to feel more like a party that was winding down. "Could you try and talk to her?"

"I can, but I don't think it'll end well." The last time he'd gotten involved in one of these situations, Peridot had gotten particularly volatile when he showed up. He was neither human nor Gem, so to her, he was an unknown monster with abilities she could not predict. "Peridot?"

_"DON'T TALK TO ME."_

Steven turned back to Doug and shrugged. "Yeah, I didn't think so."

Past Doug's body, Steven saw a familiar figure approaching from the beach. Jasper didn't seem to have noticed them yet. She was regarding the ocean waves with a vague interest.

Jasper had also become strangely commonplace in the past weeks. She wasn't out and about all the time, but she grew bored of staying in the cave for so long, and Beach City was the only definite location she knew of—aside from the miles and miles of ocean floor. She'd told Steven she often just came for a change in scenery, or to get some ideas for the cave that was "really coming together." She didn't talk to anyone much. The only time Steven had ever seen her speak with any of them was when Nanafua called, "Hello, orange lady!" and Jasper responded with, "Hm."

Jasper saw him and Connie first, then noticeably paused when she saw the firetruck. She probably hadn't seen one yet, but she knew what they were for, and there was no smoke. However, as she looked up at the green shape crawling around the big donut of the Big Donut, she sighed.

The first thing she said to Steven was, "Again?"

"Again," he and Connie both agreed.

"Why do they keep letting her get away?"

"She's not hurting anyone," Steven told her. "I don't think she even has a plan on what to do."

"No, but this is very annoying."

Connie tapped on her chin while she looked up at Peridot. Frenzied and feral, she didn't exactly strike her as someone they were coming to amiable terms with. "Maybe we should just let this ride out? She might be less scared of you guys if she wasn't dragged back to confinement every time she freaked out."

"Not going to happen," scoffed Jasper. She folded her massive arms across her chest. "You really think she's ever going to calm down and stop 'freaking out' when she's on this planet? You were there when we had to get her back that first time. The only way to stop her from going on a terror-filled rampage is to keep her restrained. Look, if it's—"

"Wait," Doug cut in. "Are you and your family holding someone against their will in your home?"

"Oh, I'm sorry for talking while you were interrupting me."

Doug snapped his mouth shut.

Jasper turned back to Connie and Steven.

"If it's such a problem for her to be on the giant pastry, I'll get her down myself."

"Uh..." Steven looked up at Peridot. She wasn't hurting anybody now, but that didn't mean she wouldn't _later_. And as high up as she was, he could see a scary future where some random, innocent citizen would get pounced on from above. Plus, Lars and Sadie wouldn't be going in until the coast was clear, and then who would make all the delicious donuts? "Can you do it calmly?"

"Whatever," Jasper agreed, and then _immediately_ called, _"Hold still, you green runt!"_

Steven fought the urge to bury his face in his hands again.

Jasper hauled herself onto the roof of The Big Donut by scaling the side of the building. Once she was up, Peridot's terror began anew. If she _could_ sweat, it would have been bullets. She was moving so ferally over the donut that it was a wonder that she managed to keep hold.

"Stay away from me, t-traitor scum! Don't come near me! I-I refuse to even be _approached_ by a lowlife w-who would use 'crybaby' and 'Blue Diamond' in the same sentence!"

"Say that again. Slowly."

The realization struck Peridot, and she looked like she could die on the spot.

This one moment was enough to allow Jasper to catch her by the foot. Peridot squawked and thrashed, but it was too late. In the blink of an eye, Jasper had summoned a cape into her grasp. With lightning-fast precision, she wrapped Peridot in it from her neck to her feet, until she looked like a triangular green head poking out of a giant burrito.

Doug gasped in relief, and called into his megaphone, "The situation has been neutralized!"

The applause was lacking, to say the least. Some out-of-town strangers (probably on their way to Funland, or maybe just to the beach) clapped wholeheartedly. Others who had not quite forgotten Jasper's scathing remarks on the beach months ago were not as willing. Out of all the Cool Kids, only Buck clapped, and it was exactly three times.

Lars and Sadie finally went in, and Lars kept his head out just long enough to say, "I still think you look like an overripe grapefruit."

Jasper ignored him. She easily descended from the roof and returned to the others, even with Peridot in her arms. The little green Gem thrashed as hard as she possibly could, but it was no use. Jasper had wrapped her up airtight.

Inside his patrol car, Doug's radio went off. He ducked in to check it, then told the kids with a gasp, "It's a new lead on the Pastry Bandits! I have to go now!"

"Hurry, Officer Maheswaran!" Steven cried. He was in genuine despair and fear every time he heard their title. "Keep our flaky, buttery confectionaries safe!"

The car spat up sand as it bulleted away. Jasper glared after it as some of it came upon her and Peridot—the latter's grunts and growls momentarily switched to hacking coughs.

When it was over, she cried again, "Let me go! Let me go right now, you—you rebels! You traitors! You ungrateful pebbles! You mindless brutes!"

Jasper's look was withering. "You're being very insulting for someone I could easily crush."

"You won't! You _wouldn't_!" Peridot tried to laugh, but it was in vain. The sound that came from her mouth was a warbled honk—more like someone was throttling a duck. "My Diamond will take note of my absence! S-She'll send help for me! And with my reports on your behavior, it won't be difficult for her to f-figure out who was responsible for this mission's failure!"

Jasper opened her mouth, but stopped herself before Steven could. It seemed that even she knew that, even if Peridot's shrieking insults were grating on their ears, telling her that Blue Diamond thought she was shattered and didn't really care was just too cruel to say.

Instead, Jasper countered, "So you think I'll just stay quiet about the fact that you fused with a Lapis Lazuli?"

Peridot's face puckered. She was obviously racking her brain for a response, but she had none. She went back to thrashing against her restraints. Her strength may have been renewed, but she did no better than last time. Jasper just rolled her eyes at the squirming bundle in her hands.

"Do you really just want to let her roam free?"

Connie and Steven turned to one another, unsure. It wasn't as though there was a single place on the planet where it would be absolutely "okay" for Peridot to be at. They had decided that there was no way for her to contact or try to return to Homeworld, but now Steven wasn't so sure. After all, Jasper had managed to get her hands on an ancient but working ship, so who was to say that Peridot couldn't do the same?

Still, considering she'd climbed up a telephone pole just because she stepped in a puddle of water on the street, it was hard to say that she would ever get far out in the world.

"We can't just keep doing this over and over," Steven agreed. "And it's not like our goal is to keep her prisoner forever—"

"So let me GO!"

"But she's not safe out there. And she _is_ working for Homeworld."

While Connie and Steven pondered it, Jasper was silent, and Peridot kept up her struggles. Steven waited for some lightbulb to flash over his head, but it never did. He was truly stumped on this one.

Neither Connie nor Jasper had a sudden idea, either, and it wasn't either of their voices that had Steven coming back to the present. Peridot's cries and growls had changed from anger to desperation. There were no tears falling down her face, but her sounds could only be described as sobs. Each time she tugged a limb and could not free it, her voice only broke more, climbed higher.

Guilt shot into Steven's heart like an arrow. It hadn't even been a month since Chrysocolla had come apart and Lapis had left, and already he'd completely forgotten where Peridot had been for so long.

"Jasper, let her go!"

Peridot didn't even respond to this, too caught up in her terror. Only Jasper reacted, with sneered surprise and a flat, "What."

"Just—keep a hold on her, but let her go, alright? Easy."

She still shook her head and sighed, but Jasper complied. The cape ensnaring Peridot flashed away—but no later did Jasper grab a hold of Peridot's pyramidal hair. Her cries stopped, but not to be replaced by whoops of victory. Even free, her flailing limbs found no purchase. Jasper's grip was iron-tight.

 _At least she isn't scared anymore_ , Steven told himself. He couldn't help but think it was cruel to free Peridot from one prison only to put her in a new one. Even so, just because he'd helped her escape from Chrysocolla did not make them friends, let alone cool all the hate and fear that had been simmering in her.

"Peridot." Steven stepped closer, wary of being clocked across the face by a swinging green arm or leg. "Can you listen for a second?"

_"No!"_

"I'm trying to give you some freedom, alright? But you have to listen."

Even when she let her arms and legs go limp, Peridot's glare on him was nothing short of acidic. She may have been small, but her eyes could melt steel. Steven hoped that she truly was as weak as she seemed—he would like to keep being _not_ afraid of Peridot.

"We're not going to lock you up anymore. Not unless you hurt someone, or if we find out that you've found a way to get in touch with Homeworld—"

"What do you think I'm supposed to do, you _clod_?!" Peridot kicked her legs. She spat, "I will _not_ be held prisoner on your tiny human-infested planet! I have kept a record of near-perfect performance ever since I emerged from rock, and I intend on continuing that performance on Homeworld. _Not_ just—just sitting around on Earth with a bunch of rebels and humans and half-rebel-half-humans!"

"We're not going to hold you prisoner, like I said. Just—"

Steven took a breath. It would be useless to insist that she isn't allowed to try to contact Homeworld. If Steven had been taken from home by a group of dangerous criminals, and they told him that he could do anything _but_ try and call his friends or family for help, he wouldn't think, _Oh! Well, that's a perfectly reasonable request!_

Even if he didn't quite understand what Peridot's viewpoint was—outside of knowing that the people she served could very easily kill her if she made any kind of mistake—he had to try and put himself in her shoes. Or, pajama-sock-things, rather. She was scared and helpless, just after a several-months-long confinement with someone who hated her guts. She needed some reprieve if she was ever going to be civil with them.

"We'll let you go. But you have to be _calm_."

"Calm? _CALM_?! HOW can I be _CALM_ when I'm being chased by a bunch of—!"

"Not about us, just about—All of this." Steven vaguely waved an arm at the general direction of town. Peridot followed it—fear glinted in her eyes. At the puddles? The cars? That spinning red-and-white striped thing outside the barber's shop? "Not everything on Earth is dangerous. And there isn't a human in Beach City who wants to hurt you."

"How am I supposed to know what's dangerous and what isn't?!" snapped Peridot. Her eyes flitted behind her visor. Perhaps four people at most were within fifty feet of them, and not one was looking over. "How do I know none of these organics will go feral and attack me?"

"Well, have they?"

"...No!"

Steven was caught between sighing and laughing. It was like trying to explain the world to a child—as funny as it was sad. "That's...just part of living, Peridot. You just have to learn what's good and what's bad."

"Besides," Connie added, "what's the worst that could happen? If you get hurt, you'll just poof and come back, right?"

Finally Peridot seemed to consider this, albeit without any joy. Now she looked anywhere and everywhere, clearly calculating. Were the red things on the side of the road bombs waiting to detonate, or just fire hydrants? Would bloodthirsty creatures crawl out of the pits lining the street, or were they just gutters?

When she looked back at him, it wasn't at his face. Her eyes lowered down to where his Gem would be through his shirt.

"Why should I believe anything you say? Why should I accept any of your 'advice'? You have Rose Quartz's Gem."

"He's not Rose Quartz," sighed Jasper. If Steven didn't know any better, he'd say there was a hint of embarrassment in her voice. "He's—"

"I know he isn't _actually_ Rose Quartz, Lap—" Peridot seized up. "Any advice from a rebel is pointless! I-I don't care how much you try and be... _nice_ to me, it could all just be some kind of ruse to get me to your side!"

"Alright, listen, pipsqueak." Jasper hoisted Peridot higher so she could look her in the eye. Rather than try and take a swipe at her, Peridot curled her limbs away with disgust, as if being so close to Jasper's face was going to make her catch 'traitor germs.' "We could very easily just throw you back into confinement, but we're not doing that. Even if you deserve it."

Steven warned, "Jasper."

"Revoked. You may be spitting mad that you don't get to call Homeworld to come pick you up and take you back. Fine. Be mad. Be angry. Keep swinging your stubby little arms around."

Peridot's attention turned to her arms, considering their stubbiness.

"But not only are you not being thrown into a cell, you can go do just about whatever you want now. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me."

"What I 'want'—" Her voice spat the word out. 'Want.' It must be taboo for lower Gems like her. "—is to get off this miserable planet!"

"Then what? Please, tell me how you're going to explain this to Homeworld. The ship had to crash somehow—the ship that was put under _your_ care. What happened to the prisoners? How did it all go so wrong?"

"It was _your_ fault," Peridot insisted. The corners of her lips twitched with a mad smile. She'd found a frayed string of victory and was grabbing hold of it like a lifeline. "I-I may have fused with a different Gem, b-but so w-what? Th-they'll never know!" A sharp laugh punctuated this. It hurt Steven's ears. "I'm n-never going to tell them! And they won't believe y-you, either! Not after I tell them w-what YOU did! Your job was to—was to keep watch over all the prisoners, and you just let them a-all out, and then they took o-over the ship! It all comes back to you, that's right! Your fault!"

Even as Peridot's voice gained righteous strength, Jasper only batted her eyes once. Slowly, unamused. It didn't stop the victorious smile—unstable, terrified, but still victorious—from finally taking Peridot's face.

"That's right. I did all that. And you let me."

That did.

"So, let me go over your three options again." Jasper gave her a little jostle. Peridot's hopeless eyes looked back up at her. "One, you keep doing what you're doing and we finally lock you up for good. No more chances. Two, you go call Homeworld and then all your superiors get to know everything you've done. You'll probably be shattered before you even make it back."

"Jasper!" Steven warned again.

"Or three, you'll stay on this miserable, wretched hunk of rock and _live_. No one's going to shatter you, no one's going to bite your head off over the tiniest little mistake. I thought Peridots were supposed to be smart, yet you're not seeing the _blatantly_ obvious choice here."

Again Peridot looked to the city and the world beyond it. Her face was starting to waver—she wasn't hiding her hopelessness well at all. But she kept her arms folded over her chest and kept her chin raised. Even as her feet dangled beneath her. "What am I _supposed_ to do out there?"

Jasper's upper lip curled back from her teeth. "I don't know. Not my problem."

" _Jasper_ ," Connie and Steven _both_ warned.

" _Ugh_. Just—I don't know. Do the opposite of what Peridots do. Count something wrong. Stand around and do nothing for ten minutes. Scream. Whatever."

Even though her expression was miles and miles away from happiness, Steven was starting to see a glint of something else there, too. Consideration. If he had to take a guess, he'd say that Peridot was probably dealing with the same thing that Jasper had gone through: disgust and outrage to be told what to do on this planet by traitors, yet just a _little_ excited that she isn't going to have to worry about execution from superiors breathing down her neck.

"I... _refuse_ to thank you, praise you, o-or say or do anything to you that can be misconstrued as respect." Peridot sniffed. "But I agree to your terms."

"Alright. Now I'm going to put you down. And you are _not_ going to bite me."

Peridot grumbled.

"Fine. Down you go."

Of course Jasper just _had_ to drop her like a hot potato instead of easing her to the sand. Peridot managed to land on her feet, thankfully, and stayed squatting for a moment. Eyes narrowed into slits, her gaze went from each of them in turn. Waiting and waiting, but finding nothing to be alarmed of.

So, finally, Peridot ran. First on all fours as she'd done in their scuffle before, but finally pushing herself to her feet and pumping her arms in a sprint that would make an Olympic athlete jealous. Soon she was out of sight, disappearing into the thick of Beach City. The others waited for something—a scream, a crash, a car alarm going off. Instead there was silence.

Worry filled Steven at once, even though it was his idea to begin with. Connie wasn't wrong that there likely wasn't anything around here that could outright shatter Peridot, but it wasn't as though she could just will herself not to feel any fear. He hoped the quiet didn't come from her being too petrified to make a sound. "Think she'll be okay?"

"Mm..." Connie hummed in thought. She set a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "We'll just have to wait and see how it goes."

Jasper tutted, "I give her ten minutes."

Suddenly Steven's stomach growled so hard that he thought the others would feel the reverberations. Then Connie's stomach joined in, as if in response, and the sound was like two animals snarling over scraps. Jasper's eyes nearly bugged out of her skull listening to the dreadful noise. "Just so I'm clear, that sound does _not_ mean that you're dying?"

"No. But we are starving! And what do you know, the Big Donut is right in front of us! Hey Connie, does your Mom let you eat donuts now?"

"Only once a month, and it has to have at least _part_ of a fruit in it. So I can get a bearclaw, I guess." Connie added through the corner of her mouth, " _But she didn't say anything about extra icing."_

"Jasper, do you want to—?"

"No."

"Well, do you have any plans today?"

Jasper shrugged her broad shoulders. "Not really."

"Do you want to hang out with us?" Steven's eyes lit up at the same time as the lightbulb above his head. "Oh! Can we come to the cave?"

Jasper tapped her chin in thought. "It _would_ be nice to get some input on the architecture." She snapped her fingers at them—it was quite loud, given how large her hands were. "But you have to eat your carbohydrates here."

"Yes, ma'am. C'mon, Connie, we have to get there while they're still warm!"

* * *

Like everything else in the room, the egg chair was made out of solid stone smoothed out to perfection. A thick cable of woven vines suspended it from the high ceiling above. It was a very... _quaint_ feeling, nestled inside the hollow with the cushions that Jasper had gotten from someplace or another. Steven took a sip of cold water—purified and kept frosty thanks to the downstairs purification system and the subzero chamber—and said, "I think the place is really coming together, Jasper."

"Yeah, I guess so." Jasper put her hands on her hips and looked around, her hum dissatisfied. Steven couldn't think of anything else she could put in the living room. She already had the egg chair, a sofa with an Afghan draped over the back, a firepit already lit and crackling, a pool table ready for a game, a flat-screen television that stretched wall-to-wall, stereo speakers taller than Steven himself...They were all made of stone, yes, but they were no less impressive. And this was just the _living room_. "I don't know, I still feel like there's something I could do."

Connie stepped in through the hallway door. While Steven's visceral need to get into the egg chair (having never been in one before) had pulled him away from marveling at Jasper's home, she had much more to do. Every muscle in her face was slack with awe. "How did you make a pool _and_ a jacuzzi?"

"Ah, the pool was easy. Just had to dig out the frame then fill it with water. The jacuzzi was a little harder. Turns out there's a pocket of magma not too far underneath us...Anyway." Jasper rolled her shoulders back and made her way into the kitchen. She'd clearly taken some inspiration from Steven's Room, with the island and its stools, but she'd made the fridge, oven, and all other appliances so impossibly smooth they looked like stainless steel. She cracked open the fridge and stuck her head in. "Either of you two want more water? It's literally all I have in here."

"No, thanks." "I'm good."

Steven kept turning in his delightful egg chair, while Connie kept looking up and down and left and right like this was all fake. With the living room, the kitchen, the pool and jacuzzi area, the master bedroom, the guest bedroom, the lounge room, the game room, the bathroom, the sauna, the utility room, the study, the cellar, the conservatory, the panic room, the studio, the sunroom, the library, the attic, the office, the cabana, the theatre, the chashitsu, and the ballroom, it was hard to imagine what she _hadn't_ done.

"I guess you really found your calling, huh?" she asked.

Jasper shrugged. "It's something to do."

"Yeah, but you like it, right?" Connie ran a finger over the island surface. Not even the slightest bump. "It's great to have a hobby to do."

"A hobby." Jasper's eyes squeezed. "What is a hob-bee?"

"It's just a thing you do for fun," Steven explained. He set his water down to mime his fingers as if plucking strings. "Like how I play the ukelele, and Connie reads. There's not really any point, you just do it because you like doing it."

For the briefest of moment, nothing was wrong. Jasper just nodded, the clouds of confusion dissipating from her features. Just as soon, something _was_ wrong. Jasper's brow twitched as though struggling not to furrow. Her yellow eyes cast down to the floor, and when she decided that wasn't far away enough from looking at either of them, she turned back around.

Connie looked to Steven, as she now often did concerning Jasper. Even if she found their companionship to be weird (weird, weird, weird), she understood that Steven at least considered her a friend, and had familiarity with her that Connie couldn't rival. But even Steven was shrugging when the egg chair turned towards her. Neither of them could rewind what they'd said to figure out what words were wrong.

"We're not trying to tease you, or anything," Connie tried. "I mean, I don't like it when people tease me for reading a lot, so I wouldn't do that..."

"Yeah, building things is a cool hobby." Steven ticked off his fingers. "Architects, home designers, professional sand castle builders—they're all super cool!"

"It doesn't need to be _cool_." It wasn't just discomfort with using the temperature-describing word as a synonym for 'admirable' in her voice. Something else was making it tight. "It's just..."

She stopped herself with a scoff. Whatever she was going to say, she was already mocking herself for it. Suddenly she swiped off all the knives on the rack behind the stove. (An action that had Connie reaching for the sword that wasn't on her back.)

"I'm going to go down to the smithy and—sharpen these." Jasper stormed off and down the hall before either of them could answer. After a called, "They're too dull!" there was nothing to be heard but her footsteps descending the spiral staircase in the eastern wing.

"There's a smithy, too?" Connie shook her head, and turned back to Steven. He'd stopped his spinning to look at the doorway where Jasper disappeared. "Did we say something wrong?"

"Not...really."

Steven sighed and brought his legs up into his little nest. He felt stupid for even considering that things were closer to 'okay' now. His and Jasper's little expedition to the Beta Kindergarten had not ended with a pretty little bow on top.

"Jasper's still getting used to being on Earth. Homeworld told her what to do for her whole life, and now she gets to choose. Which is great, but...y'know." He shrugged. "I can't blame her for being confused."

Connie looked up at the sloped walls. Alcoves the size of Jasper's hands were dug into it at a random but fashionable pattern. The open "skylight" let the morning light pour in bright and yellow, but inside each alcove were candles, some new, some wearing collars of melted wax. It was a delicate design choice so unlike the Gem who made it.

"It seems like she likes doing this," she offered.

"Yeah, but for forever?" Steven could hardly remember what ten years felt like, and it was impossible for him to imagine twenty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand. This stone palace Jasper had built was something from a dream, but how long was it going to take before she grew sick of its familiarity? "It's really, _really_ cool, but...y'know. Not the same as being a warrior."

Connie nodded. She considered herself lucky for meeting Steven and being introduced to his great new world, and it was difficult to comprehend if the reverse had happened. She would be devastated if someone told her that she was never allowed to pick up a sword or fight for her friends ever again—she could do nothing but read books and practice the violin.

Their conversation was halted by the loud, crisp sound of a doorbell singing _ding-dong, ding-dong_.

Connie could only balk, _"How."_

Jasper's voice drifted up from far away, calling, "Coming!" But Steven answered back, "I'll get it!" and left the sanctuary of his egg chair. He already missed it.

It didn't occur to him until he had the hand on the doorknob that he could not begin to guess who could be on the other side. His core suspicion was that it was one of the Crystal Gems, which sickened him with dread. If they were here, it could not be for a good reason.

He pulled open the door, and instead of seeing purple, or blue, or red, he saw green.

"Oh! Uh—H-hey, Peridot."

Needless to say, he was not expecting to see her again so soon.

And certainly not of her own volition. The same Peridot who had climbed the Big Donut for sanctuary from the organic citizens now stood in front of him with her hands folded behind her back, professionally casual as a door-to-door salesman.

Even so, her mask was not perfect. She still had that signature pinch to her mouth. It must be hard to hold your head high in the face of desperation—whichh could be the only reason why she was here, at least in Steven's opinion.

Steven stood still because he had no idea what to do. Connie joined them but had nothing to offer, either. After all their skirmishes and misadventures and, in all honesty, near-death experiences with Peridot, this was just far too simple a situation to swallow. Steven's first meeting with her almost ended with him as a pancake. Now he was opening the front door to see what she needed.

Peridot cleared her throat behind her fist. "I request that this conversation continue in a civil and professional manner."

Connie looked at Steven, Steven looked at Connie, and they both looked at Peridot. "M'kay."

Peridot nodded. Steven could nearly hear her thoughts: _Step One completed_. "Is the Jasper here?"

"Um...Yeah. Just a sec." Steven turned and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Jaaaspeeeer! Peridot wants to talk to you."

Soon enough Jasper was stomping into their view with her face in a twisted knot because _who_ wanted to talk to her? Sure enough, her eyes landed on Peridot, and she thundered her way over to them. Steven saw Peridot's form go taut, but he knew Jasper well enough now to know that it wasn't an angry approach so much as a why-are-you-here-I-don't-want-to-talk-to-you approach. "First of all: Get off my doormat."

Now it was Peridot's turn to twist her face, but she followed Jasper's pointing finger down past her feet. 'NOT WELCOME' was carved in the stone between her legs. She stepped back.

"Second of all: What?"

Peridot cleared her throat again. It hurt Steven's spine to see her stand so pin-straight. "I request to speak with all of you in regards to my current residency here on this planet and the future of it."

She ended this with a nod to herself. Steven looked back at Connie, but now to see if she had felt the spark of excitement she had. He hadn't ever thought it would happen so soon, but now Peridot was coming to them calmly, without any aggression, seemingly to negotiate with them instead of—

Jasper slammed the door in Peridot's face. "No."

"Wh— _JASPER_!"

 _"What?!"_ Jasper groaned like a petulant teenager when she met Steven's outraged glare. With nothing but reluctance, she pulled the door open again. Peridot was shaking on her feet. "Fine, but we're not doing it in my house."


	7. The Fish Out of Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven enlists Jasper's help with their new neighbor.

"I guess I get why you did it, Steve, just maybe give us a heads-up next time?" Ruby shrugged. "When we didn't hear anything for so long, we got worried. And maybe a little excited. But more appropriately, we were worried."

"Yeah, that's fair." Steven took a glance at Peridot over his shoulder. She still stood in the middle of the Room with her back straight as an arrow and her arms folded behind her. Her show of professionalism went wasted—the only other person even slightly as postured as her was Opal, and even so, she had been pulled in by the magic-eye photo on the far wall. "You guys are okay with this, though, right?"

Ruby shrugged again. She'd been doing a lot of shrugging lately. "I guess so."

Sapphire nodded once, hands clasped to her chest. "I'll go along with it."

"What about you, Opal?" Steven tried, but it was no use. She was enthralled. "It's a lion, Opal. It's a lion on a rock. Look at the upper-right."

It took a second for it to click, but finally Opal figured it out and made a semi-surprised little "oh" sound. The brief moment of levity went plummeting again when she turned back to him for just a moment. Their gazes met, but the very second she recalled what she was just asked, she looked away and gave a simple, "It's fine."

If Ruby and Sapphire had anything to say about the uncomfortably obvious tension in the air, they kept it to themselves. Steven didn't press into it, even if he was tempted to. He still didn't completely understand Opal's coolness towards him after their talk, but he was starting to think she was angry because _he_ was angry. Connie said that her mother was like that sometimes, when she was just so frustrated that she couldn't help but break her cool and vent to Steven—"It's like the second I say something back, nothing else matters. I talked back to her, and I'm not allowed to do that, so that's it! End of story! The fact that she chucked my _Dissimilar_ book in the trash no longer matters!"

(At the time, Steven had replied with, "I thought you said that book belonged in the trash anyway?" to which Connie snapped, "It's about the _principal_ , Steven!")

But, whatever. Now was not the time or place, and Steven still had no idea how he was going to approach it, anyway. Instead he turned back to Sapphire. "Do you think this will work, Sapph?"

"As I said before, everything is possible. This does have a few more promising outcomes, though." Then, under her breath, _"Why do disco pants keep coming up...?"_

"I will take that. So let's just see how this goes, okay?" Too excited to even wait for an answer, Steven spun back around on his toe and chirped, "Alright, Peridot, let's hear it!"

Peridot cleared her throat, then again. Then again and again. And again. And again. Then again, and Connie asked, "Do you need a cough drop?" Peridot ignored her. Did it again.

 _Finally_ she began to speak.

"Crystal Gems, Traitors of Homeworld..."

Instantly Steven's hair stood on end—he thought Peridot was here to _negotiate_ , not start another fight. But when he looked at the others, he found utter numbness on their faces instead of outrage. Sapphire simply answered, "We are."

"I am here in your... _headquarters_ today to speak with you about my current stay here on the planet Earth." Peridot unwound her arms from behind her back to clasp them together in front of her. "It has not begun on a very pleasant note, but! I would like to parlay with you."

Steven leaned over to Connie and whispered from the corner of his mouth, "What's a parlay?"

"It means 'talk things out,' but cooler."

"Ooh!"

"We are open to parlay," Opal said as she sat down and crossed her lengthy legs together. Even in such a casual stance she somehow held a more professional air than Peridot—which seemed to annoy the green technician immensely. "I assume you have your conditions, just as we have ours."

"Indeed. Perhaps we should address them one-by-one, me then you?"

A quick glance around and a few nods, and Ruby affirmed, "Go on."

Peridot clicked her tongue and rocked back on her feet just so. Splayed out along the sofa behind her, Jasper rolled her eyes up and beyond the ceiling. "My first condition of a possible peaceful and non-violent cohabitation between us is that I no longer be beaten, tossed, shoved, grappled, bound, restrained, imprisoned, or otherwise manhandled while I am here."

Ruby snorted and chortled, _"Manhandled."_ Sapphire nudged her with her elbow.

"Accepted on _our_ condition," countered Opal, "that you stop disturbing the human citizens of the city. No more causing traffic jams or hissing at children at the arcade. Also, even though you haven't yet, if you hurt or otherwise cause harm to any human, it's back to being manhandled."

This time everyone snorted and chortled. Including Opal.

"Agreed," replied Peridot, but with that same unmistakable hesitance she'd had when Steven let her go before. Not stubbornness, per se, but clearly telling herself to work on her composure. "My second condition is to not have any perimeters in any way. Not that I particularly desire to travel this measly planet any more than I already can, but I won't be confined to your headquarters and the surrounding civilization."

This time the Crystal Gems shared a look, unsure. Still, Ruby spoke without any of them exchanging a word. Steven was impressed that they were all on the same wavelength. But it also brought to mind that they were all on the "same wavelength" when they decided to keep him in the dark.

"We won't keep you here. _But_ if you start travelling just so you can find a way to contact Homeworld and bring in backup, you're going to end up back here in five seconds."

Peridot's mouth puckered again at the same time that Steven's pursed. His logic was at conflict with his empathy. They just _couldn't_ ensure that Peridot wouldn't jump at the opportunity to SOS for a fleet that could potentially wipe out Beach City, if not the whole Earth. At the same time, there was no room in the way that Peridot's mind worked for her to just happily accept to be confined to her enemies' foreign home planet forever.

"I...accept."

The quiet dripped with the understanding: agree to disagree. It was an unsaid and bitter "Oh well!" They couldn't stop Peridot from trying, but they would punish her if she did. Steven chewed on the inside of his cheek and immediately stopped—the tender flesh has been chewed raw.

He locks eyes with Jasper across the room. She has her head tilted back but can just barely look at him. She says nothing, does nothing before looking upward again. Scoffing at how stupid this whole situation is? Looking up at the rafters and thinking, 'oh, that'd be a nice addition to my house'?

Sapphire asked, "What are your other conditions?"

Like flicking a switch, Peridot's spine stood even straighter, and her heels snapped together. She was steely and immovable, and declared with no room for questioning, "You will return my limb enhancers to me!"

This time, the three-way gaze between the Crystal Gems were _not_ of unspoken agreement. More an unspoken "Oh, dip." The look between Steven and Connie was an unspoken "Huh?" which the latter verbalized: "Your what?"

"Limb enhancers," sighed Jasper. Without even looking at them all, she limply raised one wrist and pointed at it with the other hand. "The hunks-a-junk she wore to look taller."

"They are _not_ to look _taller_ ," Peridot bristled. She raised her foot as though to stomp it, but had just enough self-control to gently set it back down. "They enhanced my performance capabilities and allowed me to do my work in a timely and efficient manner!"

"Oh!" Realization lit up in Steven. "You mean your little—" He drew a figure eight in the air. "—things?"

" _Yes_ , my little—" Peridot angrily repeated the gesture, although hers was more like a dodecehedron. "—things!"

Opal gave one of her sidetails a gentle tug. "Unfortunately, we can't do that. They landed in the ocean when...Y'know..."

Sapphire calmly added, hands never unclasping, "We never took them to begin with."

"Also, you tried to use them to call Homeworld." Ruby clicked her tongue. "So."

Peridot sputtered and spat like a teapot about to explode. Behind her, Jasper gave a little snort.

 _"Fine,"_ Peridot burst out at last, as though the word was an insult in and of itself. This time she _did_ stomp her foot, but instead of a commanding _BANG_ , it was more of a gentle _pat_. "Then I have—no more conditions!"

"So we're all friends now. Great." Jasper pushed herself off of the sofa. The floorboards creaked and groaned under her sudden weight, but she just dusted her hands free of the work she did not do. "Can I go? Why was I even here?"

"Because _you_ are a Crystal Gem as well." Peridot pointed a finger out and swept it across the room, somehow keeping an eye on each one of them at the same time. "And I need you all on the same page!"

"I already told you, I'm not a Crystal Gem."

"You're a traitor to Homeworld and the Diamonds, you work alongside them, you've established a headquarters right next to _their_ headquarters, what else are you _supposed_ to be?"

"Hey, you know what I just realized? I'm not invested in this conversation. Bye."

So with that, Jasper turned on her heel and squeezed her way through the newly-repaired front door. Peridot's gaze on her retreating back still had a burning disgust, but there was a new bafflement there, too, an unspoken "What is _wrong_ with her?" Steven knew that Jasper already had a reputation as the strongest soldier to ever come out of the Beta Kindergarten, one of the best of the best. Peridot must be reeling, seeing her like this.

"So, now what?" Ruby stuck her hand out, though she looked none too pleased to do so. "We going to shake hands, or...?"

"I have no desire to touch a rebel. Certainly not one who can't keep her thermokinetic abilities in control!"

"Just because you say big words, it doesn't mean you're smart," Ruby droned. She, too, rolled her eyes up to the roof and turned for the Temple Door. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but Jasper had the right idea. I'm out of here."

"Then this parlay is now adjourned." Peridot bent her arm at the elbow and her back twitched forward for just one second—then she obviously remembered who she was about to bow to, and that bending arm suddenly smacked across her own face. She walked backwards to the door. "Our cohabitation of this planet now begins."

She must have been expecting an argument, an insult, some kind of reaction. Instead, Steven just waved to her, and Sapphire gave nothing more than a quick, "A'ight."

So Peridot left, too, and Steven let out a breath. Even without Sapphire's future vision, he'd seen a thousand different ways the conversation could have gone, and this had been one of the best ones. They could finally mark another item off of their list of Big Problems to Worry About. 'Course, it would be oh-so-great if they could mark out 'Homeworld in its entirety' from that list, too, but baby steps, baby steps.

"This is good," Connie declared with a sure smile, a nod, and her hands on her hips. That sureness lasted for all of three seconds. "This is good, right?"

"It most certainly is!" Steven clapped his hands and rubbed them together. He saw an opportunity right in front of him and he swore he could almost grab it with his hands alone. "If we keep going like this, Peridot may become one of our friends!"

"Didn't she try to smoosh you?"

"Yeah, but so did Jasper."

"I don't think that's a good argument."

"Do you think we should give her space, or try to mend some bridges? Or maybe we can do both! Sapphire, what do you say?"

Sapphire popped off the lid of the coffee container she'd pulled from the cabinet. Her voice and her body were as in control as they always were, calm and composed, yet he did not miss the slight curl to her lips. "I'd rather not."

"Okay." That left one person, and though Steven was not eager to ask her, he only had two seconds to make a split decision—inviting her will be awkward, but so would _not_ when he'd just asked Sapphire. "Opal, what about y—oh."

Somehow the fusion had disappeared without anyone even noticing. No small feat, considering her size. Steven clicked his tongue and brushed it off as best as he could. Three others had peacefully bowed out of the situation, he couldn't just single Opal out for doing the same.

"What are you thinking?" Connie asked. Her voice was the only sound in the room now, apart from the coffeemaker gurgling to life as Sapphire poured the water inside. "'Cause I can't think of anything that won't make her freak. She's very freakable."

"You're not wrong." Steven tapped his chin. "She's probably still struggling to getting used to everything. Maybe we can try to help, just without being pushy about it. Like when someone knocks on the bathroom door to ask if you're okay and then appropriately leaves after you say 'yeah.'"

"So, we just wait until we run into her again?" Connie pulled the screen door open for the two of them. The sunlight washed heat over their skin as they stepped onto the sand-crusted balcony. "Beach City isn't that big. It'll probably happen eventually."

"You are _super_ not wrong. Look."

Steven pointed down far below, to the stretch of white sand that separated the Temple from the churning tide. Peridot stood immobile, arms uncrossed, limp at her sides. Steven was surprised that she would still be lingering around. She was always so eager to put as much space between her and the Temple as possible.

Steven and Connie descended down the creaking stairs, both unsure if they should try and be quiet or not—disturbing Peridot would be a bad idea, but so would sneaking up on her. Thankfully she heard their footsteps dusting along the sand and turned with her nose knotted on her face. "What?"

"We just wanted to see what you were up to," Steven chirped. He took solace in seeing that Peridot was not bracing herself, either to run away or take a swing at him. Progress. "Now that you're a free bird, where do you want to fly? Have you been to one of the restaurants yet? If you're not still scared of it, the Arcade is really cool—"

"Do I need to add another condition?" Peridot folded her arms over her chest, and for a split second she looked uncomfortable to do so. "I won't report what I do or where I go to any of you!"

"No, no, no, we're not trying to snoop or anything, just—Checking in. You've been pretty…uh…"

"Kerbobbled?" offered Connie.

"Yeah, you've been pretty kerbobbled about being here so far. Now that you don't have anything to be afraid of—"

"I wouldn't say that I don't have 'anything to be afraid of.' Not that I'm afraid of any of you! Just— _eugh."_ Peridot turned and put some distance between them, but the only way she was headed was back toward the ocean. "I don't want to hear any more of your fake worrying, either."

 _But it's not fake,_ Steven wanted to argue. He held his tongue. Progress though there may be, Peridot was still a brick wall, and there was no point talking to her. Though he also didn't want to give up the opportunity _to_ talk to her.

"Maybe you could use some ideas. It's okay to not know what to do."

"I am failing to see any point in doing _anything_ on this planet." Peridot threw her arms out, gesturing to the—everything. "I know what my purpose is and now I have no way to fulfill it! There are no projects to be completed, no data to gather, no reports to fill out!"

"Well, you don't just have to do work now," offered Connie. She, too, gestured to the earth around them. "You can just do whatever."

"What is 'whatever'?"

"'Whatever' you want." Connie started ticking off her fingers. "Read a book, build a sandcastle, pet a cat, paint a picture, look at the clouds..."

"You can mix-and-match, too," Steven threw in with much enthusiasm. "You can look at a cat, or paint a sandcastle, or read a—cloud. I didn't think this through."

"What is the purpose behind any of that?" Peridot's fingers curled into claws, trying desperately to just grab an explanation. "What is the problem fixed by doing those things?"

"Uh...boredom, I guess? You just do it because you want to."

"Right. _Want_." Peridot half-scoffed and half-snorted, a rather gross sound like she was hacking up something in her throat. "That concept that rebels came up with to brainwash Gems to their side."

"So...you were around for that?" Steven looked her up and down. He was still getting used to seeing her so not-tall, not that that meant anything. She probably had a few inches on Ruby and Sapphire, and they were both as old as the mountains. "I thought you were younger. I mean, you're probably five hundred times older than me, but still."

"I'm an Era 2 Gem. I wasn't around during the War, but I know everything that happened. The Diamonds make sure we all know what happens to traitors."

She said it with her chin raised and her nose pointed upwards, but Steven did not miss the slight quiver in her voice. It brought to mind that scene inside her head: all the other Peridots sinking into the void as they are each caught red-handed in their "crimes" against Homeworld.

"But the Diamonds aren't here now," Connie answered while Steven was still thinking. "And like you said, there's no job _to_ do, so there's no job to fail, right?"

"That doesn't change the fact that nothing on this planet even _remotely_ appeals to me."

Now another scene came to Steven's mind. He stood in the calm darkness of the ocean's depths, looking up at the light show of the sea creatures. He saw jellyfish strung with fairy lights and eels winding ribbons above his head. "But I thought Chrysocolla liked—"

For the first time in a long time, Peridot gave him a look so suddenly furious that Steven's mouth sealed shut at once. He may have done them a favor, but that was it. They are not friends forged by fire. He doesn't get to bring up what happened to level with her.

Peridot took her eyes off him, the outrage behind them making the movement as grating as pushing a heavy stone across the ground. Her surroundings reflected against the lens of her visor. The Temple's eyes laid over her own. Beach City was a picture across her face. And when she looked behind her, the ocean and sky were so bright that her eyes disappeared.

"Maybe I _should_ just go back." Peridot folded her arms across her chest. As another wave came rippling forward, she stood stiff and still, never moving a hair until it just barely nipped at her toe. "At least then I won't have to deal with any of you."

Even as she said it, Steven knew she didn't mean it. She may have found some silver linings down there in the ocean deep, but there were too many gray clouds to make up for it. It was like finding a few comforts in your jail cell.

That she was so desperate that she would willingly go back to such a state made Steven's heart lurch. He gave Connie a silent look to maybe hang back just a second, and came forward to stand beside her—not close, but neither in front of her nor behind.

He buried his feet into the wet sand, a toe bumping against a shell shrapnel. When the next wave came, it smoothed out the earth he'd tilled. His ankles disappeared beneath as though he were a tree sprouting up from the earth. Peridot stared down at them with a furrowed brow. Her own feet twitched, considering, but never did the same.

"Jasper had a lot of problems when she first got here, too," he spoke at last.

"Right." Peridot clicked her tongue. "The Jasper you brainwashed, you mean."

"Nope. Jasper isn't with us, remember?" Peridot neither agreed nor disagreed, so he went on. "She didn't get why anyone would do anything just because they wanted to. Like you said, if there wasn't a problem to fix, it seemed useless. But then she actually tried it, and she found out it wasn't bad. She wasn't hurting anyone or causing any problems, and no one was going to punish her for it. You should see the house she built in the cave. It has a chachitsu!"

"What in the stars is a chachitsu."

"A chachitsu," explained Connie, "is a small Japanese teahouse."

"That does not answer my question."

"Anyway," Steven intercepted before they got distracted with explaining what tea was. Or Japan. "Maybe you can just...give it a try. If you can't think of anything, maybe just try something that you _don't_ think you'll like. Then maybe you can go back to the ocean...but I would try some stuff up here first."

"Up here." Peridot looked out at the dry land without really seeing. "And what exactly is there _up_ here to...Oh, she's back."

Peridot's eyes narrowed towards the distance, and Connie and Steven both followed with their own. Thankfully they found nothing to be concerned of: just the familiar hulking form of an orange Gem towering above everything else.

Only this time, she was carrying something so massive on her shoulder that Steven's eyes didn't know whether to blow wide open or squint to make out what it was. The closer Jasper came, the more the sunlight shed on the details, until finally they could all see her haul.

"Hey, Jasper," he called out. The orange Gem perked up just so, having not seen them, and just as soon deflated when she saw the technician among them. "Where did you...get that?"

"Found it washed up." Jasper set the boat down with a thump—though, not as big a thump as Steven would have expected. It was a simple boat, made with a metal shell and nothing but planks for seats. No engine, just a broken ring on either side for oars that were not there. Thankfully its state supported Jasper's claim that she hadn't just up and stolen someone else's property. The metal was rusted orange, the planks rotten. It was the 'SS' something, but whatever it was, it had been washed away. "Figured there was no use in just letting it lie around, so."

Peridot started to twitch on her feet. She took one step behind Steven, then one back. Her hands moved up defensively to her chest. "What is that?"

"A boat." Jasper considered her find for a moment, shrugged, and ripped out one of the rotten planks. It crumbled in her grasp. "It's for going out in the water. What, you didn't see any when you were out there?"

"We weren't close to the surface," Peridot grumbled, and folded her arms across her chest. "What does a Gem want to do with a boat, anyway? We don't need to breathe oxygen."

"I haven't decided yet. But when I do, I promise that it still won't be any of your business."

Steven closed his eyes and took a breath. He just couldn't change the way Jasper was, no matter how much he warned and scolded her. Fine. He wouldn't try to control her.

He was surprised, though, when Peridot asked them—very reluctantly, with her mouth pulled into a frown that dragged her face down, "If humans can't breathe underwater, why would they bother going out in it in the first place?"

"Well," answered Connie, "back in ye olden times, boats were just the only way to get from one place to another."

"Sometimes people use them to catch fish," added Steven. Surprisingly, discomfort stewed on Peridot's face. She didn't seem surprised that humans caught fish, and probably knew that they ate them, too, given how she'd scaled Fish Stew Pizza in one of her episodes. But the fish of the ocean had been one of her only comforts..."But! But sometimes they do it to go...snorkeling! Or sailing, or water-skiing."

"Water skee-eng? What is that."

Right on time, just to answer her question, Steven saw something moving along the length of the distant ocean. He pointed out to it. "That!"

The boat seemed to be moving slowly, from so far away. Whoever was strung behind it with their skis shredding along the waves, they were only a vague shape almost disappearing into the blue. Still...it was easy to see when they wiped out in a tangle of limbs. Steven and Connie sympathetically sucked air through their teeth.

"Humans seek death by nature," Peridots said. Factually. Like she'd finally cracked a code. "Everything makes sense now."

Connie stepped closer to Jasper's boat, regarding it with pursed lips. There was no way it was going to go out farther than the shore. Its bottom was rotted away, the water having eaten through it like worms in an apple. "So you really don't know what you're going to do with it?"

"I was thinking I could make a boathouse. That's a thing, right? Just gotta get more boats."

Steven was about to warn Jasper that she couldn't just go around grabbing boats as she pleased, but Peridot cut him off. "Is this what you do now? You just build things? That's what Bismuths and Lap—Just—Not Quartzes. You're supposed to be fighting and guarding people."

"I don't see anyone around to fight. You offering?" While Peridot only sputtered and spat, Jasper sighed and lugged up her boat again. It was twice her size, yet she just propped it on her shoulder. "I build because I want to build things. That's it."

"But _why_." Jasper did not answer. She walked on, careful to wind through Connie and Steven but clearly not caring if Peridot got out of her way or not. The green Gem splashed back in a hurry, and called to Jasper's retreating back, "What happened to your cognitive processes? _Why_ do you just want to do pointless garbage?"

'Garbage' made Jasper stop at the same time as Steven's heart. But as an answer to his quick prayers, Jasper didn't drop the boat again, didn't suddenly lunge for Peridot and wring her throat. Yet the look she gave her was damaging enough. It wasn't even directed at him, and Steven already felt a physical stab in his chest.

"It is none. Of your business." Jasper's voice rumbled up her throat. She turned but came no closer—to look Peridot head-on and remind her just with her stature that the conversation was over. "Why do you even—?"

Jasper's gaze peeled off Peridot to instead go to Steven, flitting his hands behind her triangular head and then coming together, begging. Not just to not fight her, or threaten her, but talk to her. Jasper was the only one around who was once in the same boat (pun maybe intended?) as Peridot was now. If anyone could make it through to her, she could. He just hoped he was getting that across non-verbally—is there a proper facial expression to communicate, "Please talk to this person about how your existence does not have to be justified by a given purpose"?

For a few breaths it seemed Jasper didn't understand, or had ignored him. But with a long breath and a readjustment of her boat, she droned (to a very rigid Peridot), "I just do it because I can accomplish something. It doesn't have to be something big, and it doesn't have to solve a problem. I want to build a room, so I build it, and then I'm satisfied afterwards. And if I'm not, then I just know what I need to do next time."

"But why do you _want_?" Peridot flung her arm out in the general direction of Jasper's cave. Said owner stepped in front of it, as if Peridot was going to mess it up from miles away. "Why does a Jasper want to build things?"

"I know they really try, but Homeworld can't build Gems like computers. We don't spend every moment thinking about the job we were designed for." Jasper pointed a thick finger at her, not accusingly. "If a Peridot only needs to collect data, then why do you feel fear? You're supposed to tell Homeworld everything that really happened on the ship because that's the rule, right? That's the procedure. But you don't want to, because you know you'll be punished."

The more she spoke, the more Peridot's head pulled back on her neck. Again she looked down to her feet, which were finally beginning to seep into the sand, and her legs, and her hands. She seemed to have never even entertained the idea that she was a living creature—as if 'living' was just for organic beings, and 'organic' was a synonym for 'useless.' Her small green fingers curled in to her fists.

"That doesn't answer my question," she said at last. "Why do you want to build things? Why that, specifically?"

"I don't know what to tell you. I just do. Weren't you ever...I don't know, _satisfied_ when you got a job done right? And I don't just mean, 'Oh, good, now I won't be shattered for doing a bad job,' I mean just satisfied because you were trying to do something and you did?"

Peridot cupped her chin in her hand, and Steven bit down the thrill that ran through him, that she was unabashedly considering the much larger Gem's words.

"Sometimes you just find stuff that works for you, y'know?" Connie reached into her back pocket and pulled out a thin paperback book. She frowned even as she tried to stay focus, because she had a disdain for paperback books and their readiness to crease and fold, but it could fit in her pocket, so. "Like finding the right key that goes into a lock. I like reading books. Steven likes playing the ukelele."

"I don't have it on me right now, but I promise, I will sing you so many songs when I do."

"I don't want that."

"Okay."

"So...That's it?" Peridot looked at Connie's book, and Jasper's boat, and Steven's invisible ukelele with its invisible strings that he plucked with his fingers. "You just wander around the planet until you find something that gives you a sense of purpose?"

"That's...one way to put it, I guess?" Steven set his ukelele down on the sand so he could fold his arms and think. "Sometimes the things you like to do are just stuff you're already good at, you know? Jasper's really strong, so building big stuff is easy for her. Connie reads because she's really imaginative and can picture the stuff in the book really well. I already like music, so I like _playing_ music. What did you do when you were working?"

Peridot's eyes turned skyward, thinking. "I collected data. I filed reports. I organized files."

"Okay, so...maybe you should be a librarian...?" Steven looked to Connie for support. "Someone has to put the books in alphabetical order, right?"

As he spoke, Peridot looked out into the water again. She no longer paid the tide any mind. Another boat sat motionless on the horizon. The fingers of the fallen ship peeked up from the lapping waves. Seagulls cawed overhead and the waves continued the steps of their dance.

"And all the things humans do in the water," she said, "they find purpose in that, too?"

"Yeah! Sailing's really fun, and sunbathing. You can fish just to fish, you don't have to eat them or anything."

"Then why fish at all?"

"Satisfaction," all three of them chorused together—Steven and Connie cheerily, Jasper flatly. She was looking over her shoulder at her dear cave, still so far away.

Behind her visor, Peridot raised a brow. She was mapping something out in her head, Steven could tell. Probably trying to figure out the process of fishing, and being in a boat at all. Steven didn't want to interrupt her to tell her that one just...y'know, sat there.

"Where can I acquire a boat?" asked Peridot. Down the beach and the sprawling boardwalk, she squinted. The fishing boats in the dock were hardly the size of fingernails from where they all stood, their sales as thin as paper. "What is the procedure?"

"Well. Um..." Steven never intended to tell her how she got a boat, due in no small part because he had no idea. (Where do you shop for them? Do you need to pass a boating test, like you do with cars?) Due in another part, though, because an opportunity was sitting right in front of him, gold and shiny and irresistible. "Why don't we ask Jasper if she wants to fish with us in her new boat?"

"No. No, no. No no no. No. No. No. No."

"But—"

"No."

" _But_." Steven forced on another happy face. He didn't want to force Jasper into doing something she didn't want to. It would also just be super great if she would stop being so difficult. "I'm sure it would be really fun!"

"I'm just as sure that it would not be." Jasper turned back around. Her boat whistled through the air. Some rotten splinters fell to the sand. "And you can go find your own boat. This is a beach. It won't be that hard."

Jasper didn't run away, but her legs were two? two and a half? times the size of Steven, so he had to dash after her regardless. He almost ran out of breath in the sprint to get in front of her, and narrowly avoided being squashed under her boot.

"Jasper." He clasped his hands together, squeezing until his fingers hurt. He was so, _so_ desperate for anything close to 'fine.' He would take 'decent' at this point, or even 'subpar.' His strings were getting frayed from being pulled in every direction, and he just wanted some relief. " _Please_?"

"What makes you think I would even _slightly_ enjoy being stuck in a boat with her for who knows how long?" Jasper tipped her head to the side, peering down at him with curiosity. "Why're you being so mushy with her, anyway? She's done nothing but try and hurt you."

"So did you, once, and I was... _mushy_ to you."

"Sure, but _why_." Jasper set the flat end of the boat down and held it up with one hand, as casually as a surfer holding onto their board. "I still don't really _get_ that. I tried to kill you several times; you had no reason to want to help me."

"You and Peridot are really alike," he told her, in a 'you know this' tone of voice. "You're both really out-of-place right now, and you don't know what to do. Homeworld has been lying to her for a long time, and she doesn't _like_ the Diamonds, but she respects them because she knows they'll hurt her. You said yourself that she's afraid."

Jasper cast a look over her shoulder. A crustacean had sprouted up from the sand, crawling around on its spiny limbs, and Connie was trying and failing to convince Peridot (running in circles around it) that its only danger was a mean pinch.

"I think that's a fair assessment."

"You guys have been told that Gems who obey Homeworld are good and won't get hurt, and the ones who disobey are bad and will get punished. She knows Homeworld doesn't really care about her, the same way you did." Steven looked at the green Gem with pity. Peridot could be hundreds upon hundreds of years old—hundreds upon hundreds of years of living in fear. "Maybe if we help her, she'll figure out that she should do what she wants instead of what Homeworld told her she was designed to do."

Somewhere in his speech Jasper's attention had drifted to the waves lapping by their feet. Or rather, it seemed she wanted to focus on them instead of him. "I still argue that it won't be fun."

Annoyance sparked inside of him, but Steven snuffed it out. This was Jasper, not himself. "Is that the only reason you don't want to? Because it just won't be fun for you?"

Jasper's lips pursed into a hard line. The fingers on the board gripped tighter, bending the weathered metal. He'd hoped his question would break through her defenses, but watching her now, Steven wondered if she actually _was_ about to give him another reason. But why? She'd said Peridot had never done anything to her, so why the hestiation?

Instead of confessing to it, Jasper threw her head back and stared right at the blazing sun for twenty seconds. Then her neck swung back into place, and she spat out, "We're going to need some supplies."

" _Thank you_!" Steven clapped his hands together in applause, and quickly stopped when Jasper did anything _but_ smile. He fell into (quick) step beside her as they made their way back to Peridot and Connie, the former watching as the latter set the crustacean back into the water where it couldn't hurt her. "Okay, everybody! We're going to go on a fishing trip! Hooray!"

Connie threw her hands into the air. "Hooray!"

Steven nudged Jasper's leg. She droned, "Hooray."

Peridot just looked between all of them with her eyes bulging out of her head. "Why are you all making that sound? What's wrong with you?"

* * *

Getting all the stuff together for their impromptu fishing trip was not complicated, but it did take time.

Greg unlocked his old storage unit for them to take out his four fishing rods and his old tacklebox. He didn't question why they were suddenly going on a friendly fishing trip with the Gem that was clinging to the giant donut that morning, just gave her some curious looks and kept his distance. Peridot did not create any fuss, besides her typical monotone comments and her own curious looks at the surroundings of Beach City. Steven and Connie spent at least fifteen minutes explaining what a car wash was to her, because Connie had to break down the science of how soap and water got rid of dirt.

Jasper had waved them all off to repair the boat—and it would need a _lot_ of repair. Steven and Connie were more than happy to give her the space and time she needed. Her only instructions thereafter were to meet her at the dock when they were ready.

Peridot trailed behind the two of them right in the middle of the pier, as far as she could get from the boats on either side. Steven supposed they must have looked like giant artillery weapons, things that speared into war, so he hoped that he and Connie nonchalantly passing through them would put her at ease.

Jasper was at the very end, almost hidden behind the row of fishing boats. Steven was surprised at how well she had repaired theirs. He was also surprised with how peculiarly repaired it _was_.

The seats had been replaced with stone, which he supposed made sense. Jasper had been kind enough to put cushions atop them for comfort. The boat's metal had been repaired with sheets of tin in a patchwork pattern. No doubt the inside covering was to protect them from the jagged points of the rusted nails. The rings for the oars had been repaired, and the oars themselves were carved from smooth rock. Most peculiar was that the boat's size had almost doubled thanks to the many, _many_ things strapped to its underside. Life jackets, light savers, beach balls, floaties, boogie boards, balloons...all haphazardly tied up around the base with wire and twine

"Hey, Jasper." The orange Gem stood on the boardwalk with her hands on her hips, and just raised a brow at them as they approached. "Where did you get the metal? And the nails? And...all of that?"

"Found it, found it, and found it. Must you question me every time I create something?!"

Steven held his hands up, backing off, but Connie kept frowning at the junkyard attached to their vessel. Among them was a sparkly pink life jacket clearly intended for a little girl, and a lifesaver probably ripped right from a lifeguard's tower. "Why do we have all that?"

"Because with all of us sitting in the same boat, we're just going to end up right at the bottom of the ocean, and you guys are going to hate it."

Peridot's toes curled on the salty planks. Steven warned from the corner of his mouth, "Jasper..."

"What? She isn't the only one who's been down there." Jasper's last piece of equipment was a permanent marker that she snapped the cap off of with her teeth. "Alright, now we have to name it. Isn't that what they do to boats?"

"Of course! Hey, Peridot!" Peridot turned away from sizing up their haphazard transportation to face Steven. "Do you want to name the boat?"

"Vessel of Aquatic Transportation."

"...Alright. Well, that's kind of a mouthful."

"Well," Peridot said, folding her arms, "what else are we supposed to call it?"

"Ooh! Ooh!" Connie waved her hand up into the air. "Geraldine!"

"It needs something strong," countered Jasper. She grabbed the boat to still its bobbing in the waves and hoisted it closer to her. "Like 'Windsplicer.'"

"Why don't we all compromise?" offered Steven. Then he sort of instantly regretted it when the only thing he came up with was, "Vessel of Geraldine Windsplicer."

"I'm going to need a minute to write that."

"Wait! Make sure you add 'SS' first."

"Why? What does it stand for?"

"I don't know. It's just something that you put on a boat."

Jasper inked the letters into the metal with care. While she worked, Connie leaned in to tell Steven, "If I ever write a book, I'm going to make the main character's name Geraldine Windsplicer."

"It's really cool, isn't it?"

"Alright." Jasper popped the cap back onto her marker. "That should have us set. All aboard, or whatever they say."

"Peridot, do you want to board first?"

Peridot crept forward step by slow step. The water beneath the deck was dark, leaving only her shadow to reflect back at her. Even though Steven had lived on the beach his entire life, sometimes he still felt unnerved to look at the serene waves and think, 'There's so much down there that I can't see.' But finally Peridot pulled her gaze away from the water and to their steed.

She stuck out one leg, then the other. Only when she had both feet firmly planted inside did she release the post that she clung to, and as the boat swayed beneath her, she stuck all her limbs out straight. When that didn't work, she scampered to the nearest seat and strapped herself in. She was wary, but somehow unafraid.

 _The ocean was her home for a long time,_ Steven reminded himself as he and Connie climbed aboard with their fishing rods and tackle box. _It may be familiar, but it isn't good._

Jasper's descent into Geraldine sunk them a few inches, and fo just a second the rest of them latched onto the sides, wondering if they really were about to plummet straight down. But they stayed above the surface, if not a bit closer to it than other rowboat passengers. Steven found that it was actually kind of cool, almost being eye-level with the ocean. It made him feel like he was in a submarine.

Jasper pulled the chain that Steven hadn't noticed was hanging over the side before. From the end she hoisted an Anchor with a capital A. _Holy moly_. It was almost Steven's size. Yet Jasper just set it in her lap like it was nothing.

Already they were starting to pull away from the dock, but Jasper asked, "Where to?"

Steven turned in his seat to look back at their guest. Peridot's legs curled up more and more with every inch they pulled away from dry land. "Where do you want to go, Peridot?"

She brought her knees up to her chest and wound her arms around them. "I don't care."

 _Try to keep her calm. Ease her into having fun_. "Let's follow along the shore and not go too far, alright? C'mon, Connie."

He and Connie grabbed an oar each and started their steady rhythm of push-pull, push-pull. He thought they were doing well, but Jasper stared unimpressed at them for about ten seconds before snapping, "Just let me do it."

So Steven and Connie let go of the oars to let her take over. Then they grabbed onto whatever they could when they went bulleting through the water.


	8. The Bait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The others continue their impromptu fishing trip, with...results.

There were four poles to choose from—three black, one red, blue, and yellow and covered in white stars. A relic from Steven's younger years, when he was so tiny that his pole had to be toy-sized. But it still looks really cool to him, so as he extended the poles to Peridot, he silently thought, _Not the cool one, not the cool one._ "Which one do you want, Peridot?"

She deliberated over each of them, and considering she'd literally just heard of what fishing _is_ , Steven wondered what she was looking for. But in the end, she grabbed the small one with the stars. Ah, well.

"Alright, now hold still for just a second."

Steven kept the hook steady as he speared the bait onto the point. He had no idea what it was, but it was brown-purple and smelled too sweet, and he was just grateful the fish had to eat it and not himself. As he did, Connie worked on getting the others set up.

"Okay, now here's what you're going to do." Steven held his pole tightly and waited until Peridot mimicked him. "Press down on the button and bring the pole back. Then swing it forward and let go!"

He and Peridot moved at the same time. His hook went whizzing through the air, the line streaming behind it, before it fell into the lapping ocean waves.

Peridot's fishing pole went flying in its entirety. Three seconds, and the little toy with its white stars were sinking into the depths.

 _Goodbye, my friend_ , Steven thought as his heart breaks in half.

"Just—the button. Just let go of the button. Here, you can use mine now."

He let Peridot take it from him, but then she started winding up the reel—curiously, without purpose—and he stopped her. "No, no. You have to wait for the fish, first."

Peridot's eyes narrowed out to where the little orange-and-white ball was bobbing up and down. "How do I know if there is one?"

"That little ball will go down under the water, and you'll probably feel it yank. _Then_ you start winding that up to reel it in."

Connie's and Jasper's lines flew out— _way_ out, in Jasper's case. Steven shifted in his stone chair, content to just make himself comfortable. He would be more than happy to be the cheerleader when someone grabbed a bite.

"How long does this usually take?" Peridot asked.

"I don't know. Maybe just a second, maybe a while. If we don't get anything at all, that's okay."

"Not knowing when it'll happen is what makes it fun," added Connie.

They all sat there, gently bopping with the waves that rocked their makeshift boat, listening to the seagulls caw and the wind gust. From where they sat in the water, the Temple stood just to the right, her serene faces looking out to the horizon and down at the house nestled in her hands. Steven wondered if the others were still inside, and if they were watching them. He was almost tempted to wave.

The gentle rocking of the boat began to lull him to sleep. Only Jasper could make a chair made out of rock comfortable. Steven just let his eyes close, knowing that there would be a whoop or a cheer when they actually caught something.

But then his whole body seized when Jasper grumbled, "This is stupid."

She set her pole down in the boat, keeping it upright but folding her massive arms across her chest. She scowled at the blue stretch before them. "There _has_ to be a better way of doing this."

"Jasper, we just have to wait," Connie pleaded. Her line was still bobbing atop the crests, yet her patience was not worn down. "We can't _make_ the fish bite."

"Your emotionality is compromising this mission, Jasper!" Peridot barked from her end of the boat. Her small hands gripped the pole just a little tighter, as if that would help. "I must concentrate!"

"What are you going to do? Think hard enough until they come?"

"Jaspeeeerrr..." Steven crossed his arms over his chest, feeling...well, cross. The Gem's moodiness was even worse today. It must have been because of Peridot, but she herself had said that Peridot had never done anything to her, so why was that? "What's your problem?"

"I don't have a _problem_ , I'm just saying that there has to be a better way of doing this. Don't humans usually have nets, or something?"

" _Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh_ ," Peridot spat from her teeth. She was trembling with barely-contained rage. Steven was worried of how she'd react if she just didn't catch a fish today.

Connie lowered her voice to a mere whisper. "Well, we _don't_ have a nest, Jasper. All we have is our bait and fishing poles, and that's all we need."

Jasper raised a brow at her, then the water. The whole boat rocked as she shifted in her seat—Peridot growling as she tried to keep her pole still—to lean over the water. Her yellow glare on it was so intense, but Steven couldn't understand what she was looking for. Was it just her reflection? Was she trying to figure something out?

Then, with a great splash, Jasper's hands shot into the water. The other passengers jumped in their seats, but Jasper's arms just kept writhing under the surface, sloshing saltwater everywhere.

Finally she drew back, with what Steven thought may have been the largest bass he'd ever seen.

"See?" Jasper smirked as she held up her prize. The fish wriggled between her hands, eyes vacant and mouth gaping. Somehow despite its slippery green skin, Jasper's grip on it never faltered. "That took me ten seconds. Let's just do this."

"No!" Peridot's shout startled Steven again (his back was starting to hurt from all this startling), especially when she stamped her foot down upon the boat. It was a wonder Jasper even managed to catch the bass, because all their noise should be scaring fish away for miles. "That is the incorrect way to do it!"

"Says who?"

Peridot continued to wag her finger at Jasper as she wheeled to Steven, spitting mad. _"That is the incorrect way to do it!"_

"That—is _a_ way to do it. Just, uh...Jasper, why don't you let 'im go now?"

Jasper tossed the poor thing over her shoulder, back to its home. As its tail flipped beneath the surface, Jasper sunk a little further in her seat. "Cool. So we have to do this as slowly as possible or she's going to blow a fuse."

"The data that we are trying to collect in this mission is whether or not fishing holds any mentally-stimulating appeal to me," sniffed Peridot. She jutted her chin towards the sky. "Our gathering of said data will be compromised if we do not follow protocol!"

 _"Jasper,"_ Connie snapped when Jasper reached to climb out of the boat and into the water.

"That said." Peridot teetered her way over to the tacklebox and peered inside. Instantly her nose scrunched into an accordion looking all their gear. "Are these things meant to improve our performances?"

"Uh...I guess? We have more line if ours breaks, and hooks if we lose them."

Peridot picked up one thing after another—a hook, a reel of line, and the small army knife for cutting it. "That's all?"

"The bait, too, but like Connie said, we can't _make_ the fish bite more."

"What the humans are trying to say is that we're going to have to _wait_." Jasper's words may have been for Peridot, but her empty eyes were staring up at the long blue sky and the seagulls that flapped in it. "So just be patient."

"Patient? _Patient_?" Peridot reeled backwards so quickly she almost toppled over into the life jackets keeping them afloat. Steven reached out to steady her, but she batted his hands away. "Who are _you_ to tell me to be patient?! The whole time that we were on the ship, you would not stop barking at me unless everything was done the way you wanted it right then, right there!"

"That had nothing to do with me being impatient and everything to do with you doing your job so slowly."

 _"ANYWAY."_ Just saying the word made Steven feel like he had snuffed out the fuse of a bomb. Peridot looked about two seconds away from flying across the boat and throttling Jasper's throat with her small, dainty fingers. "That was then! And this is now! And I think 'now' would be a great thing to talk about. Jasper, how are you enjoying life on Earth?"

"Well, before I got into this boat—"

"Jasper, how are you enjoying life on Earth?"

"It's _decent_." Just like him, she gritted out the words from between her teeth. "Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, _Steven_."

Peridot had gathered up her pole again and was back to glaring out at her line. At least she'd cooled down to a simmer.

"And what's your favorite part about Earth, Jasper?" Connie asked as well. Steven thought they both sounded like talk show hosts.

"I can do what I _want_." She spat out the word towards Peridot, but with no venom. Still it made her flinch, but Jasper just kept on, not allowing any room for question. "And I can do it when I _want_ to do it."

"By building things that do not need to be built." Peridot curled her lip and gripped her reel tighter. "Fascinating."

"You know, maybe it took me a while to figure out what I was going to do. But when I did, I realized that being a little bored was much better than waiting for someone to decide that I mattered."

"'Decide that you mattered'?" At last Peridot ripped her eyes away from the water, but with a shock that bordered on disgust. "You would not exist if the Diamonds did not create you! And you complain that they gave you a purpose?"

Though Jasper lowered her chin to meet Peridot head-on, Steven did not feel the pang of panic that he had on the beach. Jasper was not sizing her up, not warning her with her sheer girth, not snarling at her to stand down. For once she seemed to just be considering Peridot for Peridot. Unimpressed, but calm.

"So there's something else to it, then?"

Peridot's brow furrowed over her visor. "What?"

"Why do I need to be thankful?"

"I _just_ told you—"

"You said that I wouldn't exist if it weren't for the Diamonds. And why did the Diamonds make me? Why did the Diamonds make you?"

Peridot's head was shaking so slightly it was almost unnoticeable. It was the head-shaking of someone who had just realized they were talking to a brick wall. "To fulfill my purpose."

"The purpose they decided."

"Yes."

"So you should be thankful for it?"

"Yes."

"You should be thankful for the purpose the Diamonds gave you, because otherwise you wouldn't exist."

_"Yes!"_

"So what's so great about your purpose?"

_"YES!"_

"What?"

"Y—oh. I—I was saying 'yes' so many times, I thought—I thought you were going to keep asking 'yes' quest—" Peridot shook her head fervently, stamped her foot, and barked, "What are you saying?"

"You say I wouldn't exist if it weren't for the Diamonds, and the Diamonds made me because they had a purpose in mind for me. So, doesn't that mean that that purpose is something I need to be grateful for?"

"...Yes...?" Now Peridot's head-shaking was that of someone who had just realized they were talking to someone who had lost their sanity.

"Then that means that my reason for existence must be so great that I should be grateful for the Diamonds for giving it to me."

"Okay, hold on." Steven buried his face into his hands and took deep breaths. "I'm so dizzy right now. What? What are we saying?"

Connie sighed, "Jasper, may I?"

She waved at her to go ahead.

"I think that what Jasper is trying to say is that if Peridot is saying that they should be grateful for being alive, but the only thing that they can do is their jobs, then their jobs are what they should be grateful for. So, if the only thing Peridot can do is be a technician, and she should be happy about being alive, then being a technician must make her happy."

Jasper nodded, but didn't take her eyes off Peridot. "But you didn't say that doing all that work made you happy."

"What are you all blabbering on about?" Peridot shook her fists at them, making her fishing pole whip through the air. They were not going to catch any fish today. "This nonsense is compromising our data collection!"

"What we're 'blabbering' on about is that you're admitting that there has to be something more to life than just what the Diamonds decided for you." Jasper waved an arm around them, to the ocean far below and the sky far above. "You don't like your job, but you think you owe it to the Diamonds for creating you in the first place."

"I never said that I did not like my job! Your assessment of my skills being 'so slow' are factually incorrect. I was very good at carrying out my responsibilities as a Peridot. My record was spotless."

"Liking something and being good at it isn't the same thing."

"I. Liked. It! I liked doing a good job! I liked accomplishing my tasks!"

"That wasn't part of your job description, though, was it? You're only supposed to file the reports and punch in the numbers, not pat yourself on the back for doing it."

"If I did my tasks correctly, then that means I fulfilled the job that the Diamonds gave me!"

While this verbal tennis match was happening, Steven and Connie moved their heads from side-to-side, watching the words fly over their head. Fishing had been forgotten. This was A Thing and they were going to stay out of it.

"But that wasn't it _,_ was it?" Jasper threw back at her. She had stood up to her feet at some point, and though the boat stayed afloat, it had inclined to her direction. "It wasn't just about avoiding shattering for another day! You liked doing a good job because it made _you_ feel better, not because it pleased the Diamonds."

"You're just proving _my_ point. If the Diamonds did not give me that job, then I would not have feel that self-gratification."

"You—I—Ju—" Jasper clawed her hands into her face and growled. She curled her fingers at Peridot, using every iota of self-control she had to not lunge and shake her dizzy. It had been a while since Steven had seen Jasper so...unhinged. "THE DIAMONDS DID NOT MAKE YOU TO FEEL HAPPY. YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT. THAT'S YOU. THAT'S JUST YOU AND BEING ALIVE AND FEELING HAPPY ABOUT THINGS. LITERALLY THE ENTIRE REASON WE ARE IN THIS BOAT RIGHT NOW IS TO FIND OUT THINGS THAT YOU _LIKE_ THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR JOB."

Peridot had inched herself back in the corner, now gripping her fishing pole as though it were a weapon, ready to fend back the snarling tiger that was about to pounce on her. Only when Jasper sat down, utterly exhausted, did she lower it.

Even if the pieces finally clicked together, Peridot did not light up, she did not exclaim "Oh!" and smile at the world of possibilities Jasper had presented her. She seemed rather upset, and it was an expression Steven had seen on none other than Jasper herself, in many of their conversations about the Diamonds and Homeworld and the state of their lives.

Stubborness, fear, and pain. Realizing that you had been wrong for so long but still unable to just smile and accept it.

Peridot sat back down in her seat and returned to her position. No one thought to tell her that it was unlikely to catch anything now, with all the screaming and arguing and fishing pole-swinging. She wasn't going to back down, either way.

"Maybe," she said, slowly and succinctly, "we are out here to gather information about things and activities that I _enjoy_ for no logical reason besides self-gratification. That does not change the fact that without the Diamonds, we would not have any purpose."

Jasper raised her face up from her palms, frowning. She was utterly exhausted. Yet something in what Peridot had just said was keeping her going.

"That's why you're so up in arms about all this? Finding a new purpose?"

"When the Diamonds create a new Gem, they know what that Gem needs to do, and they tell them. There is no room for ambiguity. And now..." Peridot mimicked Jasper's earlier gesture to the world around them, but there was no energy. "Now there is. Now there are no rules, no protocols, and no directions."

Her turning to look at Steven startled him so much almost jumped for the hundredth time. He'd felt invisible for such a long time there; Peridot addressing him point-blank was like someone slapping him awake. Connie, too, stiffened at being caught staring at the only thing there was to look at.

"I wonder," said Peridot, in a vacant voice that did not sound like her, "if that is why so many Gems followed Rose Quartz. Just one moment of weakness, one thought of 'What if?' and then when they realized that they could never come back, they panicked. They realized they had nowhere to go and just latched onto whatever purpose she gave them, no matter what it was, because they were terrified of just wandering around for all eternity."

 _No_ , Steven wanted to say.

Because that was factually untrue, wasn't it? Every single Crystal Gem joined in the war against Homeworld because they saw some beauty within the Earth and the life inhabiting it. They all realized that they could be so much more than what Homeworld decided and wanted to fight for that.

But...he didn't know any of the other Crystal Gems. Who was to say that maybe that _was_ the case, at least for some of them?

While he was still buffering, Jasper spoke again. "So why is it bad for Rose Quartz to give Gems purpose, and not the Diamonds?"

"The Diamonds are all-knowing and all-powerful. Rose Quartz was a defective—"

"She was only defective because she decided to stop doing what they told her to. Which is exactly what _you're_ doing, and me. Why do we even need to have a 'purpose' anyway?"

"What's the alternative, then? Just exist and not do anything? Like _humans_?"

"It's not..." Connie coughed, unsure of what to say. "It's not that bad."

"It's not the worst thing ever," sighed Jasper. She pulled her thick hair back away from her face. "It's—weird. And yeah, you don't really know what to do. So it's scary, a little. But it's better."

Peridot's eyes flickered all over, from the sea to the sky to Jasper and back again, like there was nowhere comfortable to look. "Is it _really_ —?"

"Peridot!" Connie threw herself against the side of the boat so suddenly she almost toppled over, and pointed a finger out at the water. "Peridot, you've got something!"

Just as she did it, the end of Peridot's fishing pole began to twitch, and sure enough, her rod ball was nowhere to be found. Peridot's head started to go up and down like a bobblehead, water, fishing pole, water, fishing pole, water...

She had no idea what to do.

"Reel it in, Peridot!" Steven spun his hand around, suddenly frantic and overflowing with excitement. This part never got old. "Reel it!"

Peridot spun her reel as quickly as she could, but then she started to reel _herself_ , and the fishing pole began to dip at an alarming angle. Steven stumbled over the boat to get to her, pushing her forward again. "Peridot, careful! You'll break it!"

"What am I doing wrong?!" Peridot's hand was spinning around so fast it was a bright green ring, and her teeth were gritting to break. "What are the protocols?!"

"Just. Keep. Reeling!" Connie, too, was overcome with the energy of it all, and could only pat her hands on Peridot's arm like it would do—something? "You got this! You got this!"

Jasper droned, "It's a fish. Calm down."

 _"Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel!"_ Connie and Steven chorused. Peridot let out a pained whine, but kept reeling, even as the reel began to groan and click.

 _Finally_ , the water began to splash, a tail flipping out and glinting in the sun. Just a bit more, and the prize was found. The fish hung from Peridot's hook, feebly squirming from side to side, flicking water droplets everywhere. Steven couldn't tell what kind it was, but it was a fish, and that was enough.

Even if it was...well, pretty small.

"You did it, Peridot!" Steven applauded and would have jumped if they were on dry land. "You caught a fish~!"

"I did it? I completed the task?"

"Yes, Peridot, you did it," Connie laughed. She steadied Peridot's hands where they shook the fishing pole, as if trying to wriggle something out of the poor fish.

"Now what?"

"Uh..." Steven looked around them. He'd forgotten he was going to have to answer that question. They clearly weren't going to cook it. They didn't have any buckets to...keep it, or anything. "We...let it go."

Connie carefully unhooked the creature's lip, holding it gently in her other hand, and released it. A quick little splash of water, and it was gone as soon as it had come. And Peridot's hook was fishless once again.

"So..." Steven leaned in, smiling cautiously. "What do you think?"

Peridot pulled her hook in to feel it between her fingers. There was no outcry of joy that Steven had been (naively) hoping for, but he would take consideration. That she wasn't throwing her pole to the water and cursing the whole thing was enough.

"More data," she said at last. "I need more data."

"Good! Good, good, good. Let me get some more bait on your—"

"No, I need more data _quickly_. There needs to be consistent intervals, or the results will be compromised."

Steven looked to Connie for some kind of help, but she was as helpless as he was. "Um...Well, we can't really catch the fish _faster_."

"Then we must go where there are more!" Peridot jolted up to her feet and, before anyone could stop her, hopped onto the lip of their boat. She shielded her eyes from her sun and swept the ocean with a confidence surprising for someone who'd just caught her first fish ever. "Where is the prime fishing spot?"

"I—I think as long as we're in water, we've got a good deal."

"You're supposed to be knowledgeable in this, yet you give me no details!" Peridot threw her head back and groaned. "I will have to take initiative."

From the other side of the boat came a simple, "Alright." Steven and Connie span around, not in alarm or panic, but just in surprise at the genuine blasé in her voice. As though she were almost chipper (just not _that_ almost, you know) Jasper took hold of the oars again, cool as a cucumber. "Where to?"

Peridot didn't even spare her a look. With eyes like a hawk, she glared into the distance, as though trying to look straight through the water and find all the fish just swimming around, ready to catch. Then she pointed out so suddenly that Steven jumped. Again. And decided to lie down as best as he could, to heal from all the surprises. "That way! My intuition tells me we will collect many results in that direction."

"You got it."

Jasper began her rhythm (at a much calmer speed, thank goodness) of push-and-pull, push-and-pull, and as the salty wind picked up around and the water licked at the boat, Peridot kept her place as their mast spearing headfirst through the waves. Pushing the curls out of his face, Steven looked back at Jasper, who seemed utterly nonplussed. If he had to take a guess, though, he'd say that she was a little satisfied.

* * *

Even if her knowledge of all things fishing was still very new, Steven had to admit, Peridot was... _scarily_ good at scoping out good spots.

They went further along the shore, starting and stopping, fishing and sailing, their route probably looking like a connect-the-dots page in a coloring book. Peridot would randomly yell for Jasper to stop, then they would set up their poles and get to it.

Each stop seemed to just get better and better. First they caught two fish, then four, then six, and on and on, all shapes and sizes. Once they had to pull in Jasper's help to haul in a bass about as big as Peridot herself. Never did Peridot whoop with joy, or just pat herself on her back. She would bring in her catch and scrutinize it for a moment before letting it loose, no matter how big or small.

It was just what Steven wanted it to be: normal. They just felt like four completely normal people, doing a completely normal thing, on a completely normal day. No war, no Homeworld, nothing. Even Jasper seemed to be enjoying herself. She gave up her pole to Steven, and spent their stops sitting quietly with her arms crossed, looking as though she were about to nod off.

It seemed like such a small victory, just getting Peridot to enjoy something as simple as fishing, but he would take it.

After their sixth stop, Peridot commanded Jasper to row again, and on they went, somehow nearer and farther from the Temple at the same time. Still Steven hoped that the Gems weren't watching them from inside. For a reason he wasn't going to think about for too long.

When at last Peridot told Jasper to drop the anchor again, Steven took a second to look around their new spot. The Temple was far ahead of them, and of course, the ocean stretched out behind them. The dock was tiny to the left, and to the right, familiar fingers still stood tall and green in the water. They'd become such a staple of the view now, Steven paid as much mind to them as he did the rocks in the bay, or the buoys in the distance. It was odd to think that it was a ship, even.

Peridot didn't really pay it any mind, however, instead analyzing the waters one last time before instructing Connie, "Bait."

"Bait," Connie confirmed, and handed over the hook with the odd purple-gray gunk on it.

"Fish," Peridot declared, and cast her line out through the air.

"Fish," Connie confirmed, and did the same with Steven.

"Wait," Peridot stated, and gripped the rod tight.

"Wait," Connie confirmed, and did.

Not wanting to disrupt the peace and quiet that was to be expected, Steven shuffled a little closer to Jasper. Feeling him nudge her boot, she shifted to the side lazily, letting him inch closer. She really did look like she was about to take a nap.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself." Jasper looked up at the ship's fingers, as though she hadn't really noticed them before, but said and did nothing. She stretched her arms out, then folded her arms behind her head. "This is going better than I thought it would. The boat is still floating."

"You did a great job." Steven didn't say anything about the little smirk of pride that Jasper allowed. "I wanted to say thank you."

"I could've done better." Jasper cracked an eye open to peer down at their vessel. "Probably should've just made one from scratch."

"I don't think a rock boat would float."

"Challenge accepted."

"Well, that wasn't what I was thanking you for. I mean for what you said to Peridot."

The smirk fell into a curious frown. "Why?"

"I think it really helped. She seems like she's really—thoughtful now. I told you, hearing it from you would be different. You guys are in the same boat. Like, figuratively. But also literally."

Jasper didn't stop frowning. She shut her eyes again, said, "If you say so. She was just annoying me with all that pro-Homeworld drivel."

"Sure."

"Don't say 'sure like that. Don't say 'sure' like you're not 'sure.'"

"Well, if you ask me, I think you're kind of happy to be able to level with someone. I mean, you explain a lot to me, but Peridot is the only person here who really _gets_ you." Steven shifted on his seat, kept his eyes on the water. "I think you said to her what you want to tell your past self."

"If you say so." Jasper lowered down in the boat a little more, stretched her legs out farther. "I think I'm going to try sleeping again. You guys can row for a while."

"Aye-aye, Cap."

Jasper went still, and Steven turned away from her to leave her be. He honestly wasn't sure if Jasper did _sleep_ , at least not after the less-and-great first experience she'd told him about. Implied, anyway.

Unfortunately, Jasper wouldn't get another shot at it today. Peridot's voice called out, urgent and anxious, "Jasper?"

Instantly Jasper's eyes snapped open, and she sat up. "What?"

Peridot pointed out to the water, and all three of them craned their necks and leaned their bodies to see what was wrong. One of the life jackets, the sparkly pink one, was floating away from the boat. Peridot's mouth puckered looking at it.

"That's supposed to stay on the boat, right?" she asked, in a quaking voice.

But Jasper was already leaning back in her seat. "Eh, it's fine. Just one."

"No, it's not..."

Jasper lurched up again, and Steven guessed with some certainty that all their stomachs _dropped_. Now four life jackets were floating away, then six, then seven. And now, looking at the ones still attached, Steven saw that they were beginning to shift, the spaces between them getting larger.

Oh no.

"Oh no," Steven groaned.

"Oh no," Connie groaned.

"It's—probably fine." Jasper warily looked down at the boat. It was still above the surface. For now. "I mean, it's still going."

Then Steven pointed _behind_ her, and Jasper turned just in time to see a great bundle of their life jackets drifting away.

Only then did they realize just how much they'd been sinking, when the saltwater began to pour over the lip of their boat. Steven and Connie both yelped, Connie bending down to try and scoop it back out, but it was no use. Each handful just brought in three more.

The boat suddenly jostled, and Steven and Connie looked over just in time to see Jasper throw herself to the water, dousing them in the spray. But it was for naught. Jasper came right back up, her white hair thick and heavy, and watched as the boat bobbed further up...only to then keep sinking.

"Alright, alright, don't freak out." Jasper held out her arms, beckoning them all closer. "Come on, you two, grab on. Grab on to me."

Steven went first, stumbling and splashing before finally he flung himself to Jasper, grabbing hold of one of her massive arms. With the other Jasper plucked Connie up and brought her closer. They were all thoroughly soaked, but none of them could care. They were too focused on the sinking Vessel of Geraldine Windsplicer, and the other passenger still inside of it.

"Peridot, come on," Connie called to her, "Get out of there!"

"No!" Peridot's arms scrabbled for the life jackets that were all but dancing away from her. Even as the water lapped up at her legs, and her end of the boat sunk deeper and deeper, she just kept reaching. "We can't...fail...the missio—Whoa!"

The slick grip that she'd had on the edge of the boat gave way. She disappeared from sight somewhere along the life jackets. Leaving the others to watch Geraldine's final moments before she succumbed to the ocean, gurgling up bubbles as though drowning.

Connie held onto Jasper's arm a little tighter. "If you heard that 'snapping' sound, it was my heart breaking in half."

"I'll make another boat," Jasper sighed. She caught sight of their tacklebox and fishing poles, just barely staying afloat, and kicked a little closer until Steven and Connie could grab them. "Where'd she go?"

Steven scanned the waves and the life jackets bobbing atop them, but he didn't find a triangular green head among them. He wasn't worried about Peridot drowning, really, and she could probably swim given her history, but for what reason would she still be under?

"Peridot!" Steven cupped his hands over his mouth. "Peridot! Where are you!"

"Peeer-i-dooooot!" Connie snapped open their tacklebox, fishing through the hooks and bait with urgency. "Do we have a whistle? Or a flare?"

"I asked Dad if we could get one, but he made me promise that we wouldn't get into a situation where we needed a flare. _I failed him_."

"Alright, alright, you two grab one of those floaty-vest-thingies." Steven and Connie obediently plucked the nearest life jackets out of the water. Connie was stuck with a standard bright orange one, but Steven was lucky enough to find another sparkly pink one. Only when they tightened and clipped them on did Jasper let them go. "I'm going to look for her."

She ducked down under the surface. Connie and Steven resumed their calling, "Peridot! Peridot!" and Steven somewhat hoped that they _wouldn't_ be heard from the shore. Not that he didn't want to get Peridot back to safety, but it would just be nice if their fishing trip didn't end with them being 'rescued.'

Kicking there, with salt in his lips and crusted into his hair, a horrible thought occurred to Steven. "Do you think something got her? Do you think there are sharks around here?"

"I don't know. I also don't know why you brought that up now, when we're in the water, perfectly available to sharks."

"I'm sorry."

"Fingers crossed. Peridot! Peeeridoo—Oh! I think that's her!"

Past the school of life jackets and between the thumb and forefinger of the ship, the water began to froth and bubble. Steven let out a little sigh. He fully expected to see Peridot's head pop up, probably spit out some seawater, and complain that the mission was a failure. Honestly, he just wanted to get back to dry land at this point. Saltwater-soaked clothes chafe _dreadfully_.

That is...not what happened.

The tiny moment of relief evaporated when the water _kept_ frothing and _kept_ gurgling, growing in ferocity, first like a jacuzzi and then like it was being torn up by a propeller. Connie had the good sense to grab hold of his jacket and start kicking away from it—whatever _it_ was.

Something great and green and round sprayed up from beneath them. At first Steven thought it was a sixth finger rising up from the ship, but its shape was different, and somehow familiar. The further up it came, the more the memory stirred, just like the first time he looked at that magic-eye poster they had and saw the image bit-by-bit.

"Oh no."

Connie turned to him, alarmed. "'Oh no'?"

"Yes, 'oh no.'"

The escape pod dripped a shower of saltwater down upon them. The sun glinted bright and green off its surface, unmarred, unbroken, _perfectly_ functional. The sleek emerald glass that made up its window seemed to blink away, and inside Steven and Connie saw the absolute last thing they wanted to see: Peridot, steering the ship.

At first even Peridot seemed shocked at what she was doing. Her mouth was agape, and though they couldn't hear her breathing, they could see by the shaking of her shoulders that it was labored and quick. When Peridot finally smiled, it fought to make it to her face. Her lips twitched and grimaced, and when at last the corners of her mouth pulled up, it looked as far from a smile as could be.

"I-I did it!" Peridot's voice rang out from above, a slight static crackle hazing over her words. "My plan wo-huh-orked! No preparations! No protocols! _All_ me!"

Steven felt very small and weak, just bobbing at the waves' mercy while a giant space-tech machine loomed over him, but still he asked, "Is this because you really didn't like fishing, or because of everything else?"

"Everything else."

"Ah, man."

"I—WHAT." Connie threw her arms down, sending saltwater flying. Steven's throat panged with sympathy at the high shriek her voice made. "What do you mean, your PLAN? This was all a PLAN?!"

"Yes! Yes it was! You—You really think, after _everything_ , that I was actually listening to all of that nonsense about finding out what I like, and getting _hobbies_?! WHY would I ever LISTEN to you?" Now Peridot's whole body was shaking, arms flying everywhere as she spat and simmered. "Once I figured out how naive you all were, I made up all that drivel about wanting to go fishing so I could get out here!"

"But—why did you need us?" Steven knew that this wasn't the most important question, but in his state of shock, it was the first that came to mind. The betrayal had not set in just yet. "Why didn't you just swim?"

"Oh, as if you were ever going to let me get all the way out here. You know a-as well as I do that you were going to be watching me the second I left your headquarters! Why did I even bother with the truce nonsense in the first place?! I needed a way to get out here without raising suspicion. And since I am _much_ more experienced in the water, all I had to do was cut the lines and make a couple of holes to get rid of that rink-a-dink piece of scrap metal you called a boat. Here's your—thing, by the way."

A small hole opened on the side of the ship, and out spat the knife from the tacklebox. _Now_ the outrage set in. Steven was hurt and angry and confused all at once, and he was still just sitting helplessly in the water with nothing to do.

"Peridot! That was my grandfather's knife! Probably! Maybe! _How could you_?!"

"WE. ARE NOT. FRIENDS." Peridot shrieked, voice so broken and high that Steven and Connie both flinched. "I owe you NOTHING! Ever since we met my life has been nothing but _misery_...and I'm stopping it, here and now!"

The ship began to hum, low and haunting, and the window glossed over once more. It began to rise in the air, and Steven knew what was coming next. He just couldn't stop it. Peridot's voice droned out, clipped, icy, and blunt: "Lapis had the right idea. I'm getting out of here."

_"Oh, no, you're not!"_

Suddenly from the top of one of the fingers came a great orange beast that slammed down upon the ship. Peridot let out a squawk as it lurched and bobbed, but still stayed afloat.

Jasper gripped the surface of it so hard it seemed like to crush beneath her fingers. Her teeth were bare, ready to bite, as she pummeled her fists into the ship over and over and over, each slam against it as loud as a gunshot. _"I should've known better! A spineless worm like you wasn't going to change that quick!"_

"Y-You're still as thoughtless as ever!" Peridot's voice snapped back. "And I've had enough of your manhandling!"

Quick as a bullet, a long, metal arm shot out of the ship and socked Jasper right in the gut. Like a bug swatted off a windshield, Jasper went flying into the water, and Peridot _cackled_.

Jasper tried one last time, snarling and feral as she leapt out of the water, but the ship just danced away from her outstretched claws. And now Steven felt nothing but hopeless.

This was it. Peridot was going to go back to Homeworld and send all its forces back to them. They would have nothing left to do but sit and wait for the worst.

Jasper looked nothing short of _enraged_ as she surfaced again—already Peridot was high, high above their heads, further away than any of them could ever try to reach. But still her voice carried down to them.

"So long, Crystal Clods!"

The ship lurched forward, slowly and warningly, like she was honestly trying to _mock_ them by not bulleting away as fast as she could. She passed over them, the shadow of the ship sliding along the water, blacking out the sun for a moment before continuing arm. Jasper splashed forward in a quick burst, but then pulled herself short—no doubt realizing that it was futile.

"Guys, I—" Steven's throat suddenly felt dry and cracked, and not just from the saltwater. "I'm sorry, I can't believe I was so—stupid. This is all...my fault."

"She tricked all of us, Steven." Connie reached out to touch his shoulder, squeezing it in comfort, but even so her voice was taut. She, too, was realizing that hailstorm that was about to come as soon as Peridot left. "Don't blame yourself."

Steven couldn't say a word. All he could think about now was how he was going to explain to the others what happened. That game of cat-and-mouse had been for the best, after all. Now he would have to tell them that the worst possible person escaped while he was watching over her, and they were right, and he was wrong, and maybe the whole thing would just give them further support that he _was not ready_ —

"Yeah, I think it's too soon for that. Look."

Jasper pointed out, and Steven and Connie turned to see.

The ship had stopped. Then it moved forward. Then it stopped. Then it moved forward. Then it crept up, and up, and up...

...and crashed back into the water.

For a moment, nothing happened and nothing was said. A great spray of saltwater went high into the air, drizzling the three of them even from so far away. The surface frothed and gurgled as the ship sank back down. In seconds they could see nothing of it at all.

If it weren't for the light splashing of the waves against their jackets and the fingers of the ship, it would've been dead silent. Connie drew back the curtain of soaked hair in front of her face. Steven blinked over and over.

"Um." Connie coughed. "Should we go get her...?"

"Why," Jasper stated.

"She could be in trouble."

"Good."

"How deep is it around here?" Steven asked, now in a _new_ state of shock. Stars, he was going to take the world's longest nap after this was over. "Do you think she can—get out?"

"Who cares."

Steven blew a salty raspberry. He would go down for Peridot himself, if he wasn't positive that he would never make it down there, get her, and come back up with air still in his lungs. It's just the _why_ that's stopping him like a brick wall.

Oh, he knows it's a Steven thing. Despite what's just happened, despite _everything,_ he still wants to give Peridot a second chance. He still doesn't want anything bad to happen to her. For no other reason, really, than that he still thinks she's capable of being good.

And he still holds that it isn't a bad thought to have! He just knows that, by all logic, he can't…really…explain it…

"Well," he says at last, in a voice that even he can tell is defeated, "if she gets out, then we'll lose track of her, and she might go to Homeworld for real."

"I'm a little tempted to just let her," said Jasper. "If she gets there, then they'll see how she's gone absolutely insane and won't believe a word she says."

"It's a nice thought, Jasper, but—"

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. You two stay up here."

Jasper doesn't dive, but she stops kicking, and simply sinks down without so much as a blink. She doesn't even leave a bubble in her wake.

Connie and Steven are left alone, again. Steven fidgets with no idea of what else to do. One of his sandals slips off his foot, and though he tries to save it, all he manages to do is splash around. So he lost the boat, a shoe, and a good bit of his pride. What a day.

"So what's going to happen when she comes back?" asked Connie. She reaches up to untie her ponytail, gritting her teeth as her wet hair knots around the band. "Back to the beginning?"

"I guess. She's going to be tough to crack."

"But you're still going to give her a chance."

"Yep."

"Because you think she can still be okay."

"Yep."

"I can respect that."

Suddenly, from the spot where the ship vanished, the water sprays up once again—now with a flurry of green arms and legs. Jasper just holds Peridot up by the scruff of her neck like a misbehaving kitten. For her part, Peridot looks fine. No crack in her Gem. But, as Steven can relate to, a big gash in her pride.

"Letmego, letmego, letmego!" Peridot squawked over and over and over. "I can SWIM!"

"Not right now, you can't."

" _I refuse to obey you! I refuse to follow your orders!"_

"That's fine. I refuse to let you go."

Steven and Connie _very awkwardly_ paddled their way over. Peridot's flailing calmed just so, but it clearly not from their calming presence. Embarrassment. Caught trying to sneak out of timeout. Peridot curled up into herself just as she had done the last time Jasper grabbed her.

"Now what." Peridot sniffed. "This is where you shatter me, right? Realize I'm not worth anything and just get rid of me."

"We're not going to shatter you, Peridot," Steven assured her, as frustrated as he was heartbroken for her. "We're not Homeworld."

"So what? You're going to poof me, keep my Gem locked up until you want to interrogate me?"

"No, Peridot. _We're not Homeworld."_

"So WHAT?!" Peridot kicked at the water. "What are you going to _do?!_ What are you going to do to me?!"

"I have an idea."

Peridot's mouth puckered. Connie and Steven looked past her at Jasper, who was staring up at Peridot with a dark interest. And now Steven's frustration just bubbled more. So not only were they back to square one on Peridot, but now all of Jasper's suspicions had been vindicated. And she was not going to forget it.

"No, Jasper," Steven told her, with no room for questioning. But she still did.

"Just listen to me on this."

" _Jasper."_

"We try this thing again. No more chasing you around the city. _This_ never gets to happen again. Steven, where's your phone?"

"My phone? Why do you need my phone?"

"Just show it."

"Hold on, it's in my…" Realization hit Steven as he reached for his back pocket. And yes, he did have to pull his hand up through the saltwater to bring it up to show Jasper. And yes, it was dripping wet when he did. "Well. I'm—probably going to have to get a new one now. The good news is I should be able to transfer everything over. The bad news is that this is highly inconvenient."

"See that?" Jasper jostled Peridot until she whined in confirmation. "That's the closest thing to your precious little limb enhancers that you're going to get. It's how humans communicate with each other when they're far away, sending pictures and messages and all that junk."

Steven tried to see if Connie knew what Jasper was getting at, but she just shook her head back at them.

"So _my_ solution is to give you one of these. We're going to send you a message to take a picture of where you are _right_ when you get it. Maybe once a day, maybe a hundred times a day. Maybe we'll go three days at a time without asking. And maybe we'll tell you to do a handstand, or cross your eyes, to prove you're not taking them ahead of time. And if you take more than _five seconds_ to respond, that's it. No more chances."

All through this, Peridot just kept squinting at Steven's phone. It must have looked as advanced as a rock to her. But that was not what she protested when she spoke back. "And then what? Why would I do that?"

"Why would you d—? _Because the alternative is to spend the rest of your existence in a Bubble you little—"_

" _Because,"_ Steven jumped in, "as long as you do that, then we'll leave you alone. We won't follow you around, and we won't try to get you to get into any more hobbies. If we run into each other in the city, we'll turn the other way."

He nodded to Jasper, and Jasper nodded back. Steven hoped that he sounded firm enough. He worried that his joy over such a great idea had seeped through too much. They probably should have done this from the very beginning.

"You can't trust us, and we can't trust you. And I know we really pushed it, trying to get you to be happy about this. So this is probably for the best. Just—know that this isn't just about the Crystal Gems versus Homeworld. If it was possible for you to go somewhere that wasn't Homeworld _or_ Earth, we'd let you."

"Maybe you were lying through your teeth this whole time," added Jasper, "but everything _I_ said was true. You _know_ what Homeworld is like, and even if you'll never admit it, you know that it's wrong. And here, you don't have to worry about it. But whether or not you're going to take advantage of that, I'm past the point of caring. I'm just sick and tired of being roped into dealing with you."

Peridot reached out a hand for the phone. Steven hesitated. "I'm pretty sure it's brok—You know what, just take it."

Peridot flipped it in her grasp over and over and over, looking at it with great intensity. It was easy to see she was not interested so much as desperate to look anywhere but the others' eyes. She was caught, tail between her legs, and backed into a corner. She may have been considering her options…but there was only _one,_ so perhaps not.

Eventually Peridot clutched the phone to her chest and answered, simple and clipped, "I begrudgingly accept this compromise."

Jasper cleared her throat.

"I accept this compromise."

Jasper cleared her throat again.

"I accept _your terms._ "

Jasper's throat was clear.

"Alright! Alright so this…" Steven looked around at the life jackets and the fingers of the ship and their current positions in the water. "…was a disaster. But a good disaster."

"Hey, I will say this!" Connie stuck a finger into the air. "This was far from a boring day!"

"Where are we going now?" asked Peridot. "Are we going on another boat?"

"No, this whole stunt just earned you a night back in confinement."

"In your cave?"

" _Absolutely not._ Connie, can you strap her into one of those things?"

While Jasper eased Peridot back into the water, waiting until she could kick herself afloat, Connie splashed around for the nearest life jacket. "Yeah, c'mere."

Peridot went like a small, scolded child to be strapped into her life jacket, and Steven swam just a little bit closer to Jasper. The Quartz soldier tilted her neck back, rubbed at the muscles that connected it to her shoulders. She was definitely sleeping after this.

"That was a good idea," Steven complimented.

"You sound surprised that I had one."

"I'm surprised that you're being so—understanding. I would've thought you'd just want to lock her up after that."

"The thought is tempting. But if there's _really_ a chance to just get her to calm down, then fine. We can go for it." Jasper scratched at the side of her face. "I don't think she wants to obey Homeworld. She's just scared."

"Exactly!" Steven coughed when Connie and Peridot looked over at them. Volume. "Exactly. You get it."

"Let's just get out of the water. I've had enough of it for today."

Jasper instructed the three of them to grab hold of her while she paddled them to safety. Peridot pouted and glowered at the water that streamed by, but did not protest. She had stopped screaming for the day.

Steven knew that Jasper wouldn't be too keen on the idea, but he still wished that Peridot could take something from her. Surely Jasper was aware now that she was being studied and considered. Though she'd balked at the notion before, Steven thought that now she was entertaining the idea of helping their reluctant guest. She saw herself in her. Again, even if she wouldn't admit it.

The whole thing almost made him forget about Star. The fact pleased him as much as it flooded him with guilt.


End file.
